Things might have changed since I was a young fella growing up in Gore, but my dear old Mum was definitely of the opinion that I was (way) too young to be plonked on the leading edge of the seat between the hairy, Stubbies-clad legs of our next door neighbour’s son Brian, and encouraged to ‘have a go’ on his SS90 Vespa when I was 10-years-old.
Because I was half sitting/half standing in the footwell with Brian sitting behind me, his arms and hands hovering over mine, getting going and balancing the thing wasn’t the problem. What was, was stopping it, because in all the excitement and hype surrounding my first ride, I don’t remember anyone ever mentioning what to do when I wanted to get off, let alone what to do if – as these things inevitably do – it all started to go pear-shaped.
Bang, crash, and at least one ground-sky bounce later, Brian, myself and the poor wee scooter were spread-eagled across the Thistle St footpath and to say I was traumatised by my first ever ‘motorcycle’ accident is an understatement. My Mum was not particularly happy either, swearing me off ‘your bloody motorbikes’ for years afterwards.
Fast forward a generation and things are very different, eager parents routinely plonking their three-year-olds on PeeWee 50 mini MX bikes, kids legally able to race karts from six-years-of age, and MotorSport NZ having now offered a special Junior Licence for 12-16 year-olds for over 20 years.
This – quite amazing when you think about it – state of affairs is not limited to New Zealand either. Though he, too, got his competition start in karts (at the tender age of five) MotoGP great Valentino Rossi was racing and winning in MIniMotos, scale model GP bikes raced at kart tracks and showgrounds across Europe, when he was just 10-years-of-age.
I’ve actually read (somewhere!!) that the human brain is at its most receptive around the age of six to assimilating the sort of balance and hand-eye coordination skills riding a motorcycle or driving a kart requires. Whether your just-turned six-year-old also has the 101 other skills necessary to get his or her elbows out and start mixing it with the 10 and 11-year-olds with four and five years’ experience they are going to come up against racing karts, miniature road race bikes, quarter Midgets or Mini Stocks etc etc is a moot point.
But to be fair, the science tends to suggest that while three or four is arguably too young for any child to do more than putter around a park or paddock on a PeeWee 50, six or seven sounds about right to introduce them to a steering wheel and throttle and brake pedals.
Follow this line of logic further and If you take the example of (as he was then) a chubby, freckle-faced intermediate school kid called Scott Ronald Dixon you could be excused for thinking that it is the most natural thing in the world for a 12 or 13-year-old to not only be driving a full-size single-seater race car on a track but also be battling wheel-to-wheel with drivers two, three and (in the celebrated case of Rob Lester at the time) four times his age.
Though (I believe) it was Johnny McIntyre who earned the first Junior Licence, it was Scott who really focused the motorsport world’s attention on it by winning the NZ Formula Vee (now Formula First) title in his debut season then – as we all know – going on to win the NZ Formula Ford one and Australia Formula Holden series before finding fame and fortune in the US.
The ironic thing about the Junior Licence initiative is that (and this is only my personal opinion here) it was never intended to launch a Scott Dixon, Shane Van Gisbergen or Liam Lawson on a pathway to international success and stardom.
At the time MotorSport NZ’s executive had a strong (how can I put this?) ‘rural’ bent, and the way it has been described to me (in various conversations over the years) all the ‘cockies’ really wanted was that their kids could do local club stuff like grass gymkhanas and/or sealed sprints on closed circuits.
Naturally, Scott’s success inspired ambition Dads all over the country to sell up their kart gear and buy a Formula Vee or Class 11 Formula Ford so that their son (or daughter) could be ‘the next Scott Dixon.’
So how come, instead of following the herd, Christchurch’s Marcus Armstrong, chose to stay in karts and race them in Europe until just over a year ago?
The problem, it seems, is not so much of age, as options. What worked once, for one talented kid, is not necessarily going to work for another. Even if he or she is even younger and/or possessing a talent so rare and so different that, well…you’ve obviously been talking to one of the Dads!!!!
As I’ve said in an earlier column, extraordinary talent will out. The reality today, though, is that you could be 12-years-old and win each Formula First race by 30-40 seconds then go on and do the same in Formula Ford a year later at just 13 and while you might get the odd headline here you would raise barely a ripple where it counts, Europe or the US.
Contrast that with staying on in karts and moving – as Armstrong did – to Italy to race them for the works Tony Kart team, and your every move will be chronicled and analysed by European talent scouts who stand to make a tidy ‘spotter’s fee’ if they identify ‘the next Max Verstappen!’
Verstappen, son of top World and Euro karters Dad Jos (who Kiwis might remember racing Formula Pacifics here back in the day) and Mum Sophie started driving karts at four……………….but tellingly didn’t win his first major title until he was 10.
From that point on, however, his career trajectory was virtually straight up, moving from the 125cc/6-speed gearbox KZ2 class (in which he infamously clashed with our own Daniel Bray at the World KZ2 Cup meeting in Italy in 2012) to F1 after just two seasons in Euro F3.
Marcus Armstrong would certainly never have been on the radar of the Ferrari Driving Academy if he had stayed at home and swapped his Rotax Max kart for a Formula First or Ford. So the decision to up stakes and race karts on the other side of the world has already paid a sizable dividend. And he is still just 17-years-of-age.
And, having now seen a second-generation of kids start racing karts as six-to-eight-year-olds then move into cars with varying degrees of success I think the pros – in terms of the life-long friends they make, life-lessons they learn and career options participating in a sport with such close ties to the motor industry – far outweigh the cons.
Also, if you think the achievements of that first-generation of wide-eyed kids – and here I’m thinking in particular of Scott Dixon, Brendon Hartley, Earl Bamber, Nick Cassidy, Mitch Evans, Shane Van Gisbergen and Scott McLaughlin, but there are plenty of others – are impressive, imagine what the next generation, the likes of Liam Lawson, Marcus Armstrong et al, is going to be able to do?
POSTSCRIPT
Oh, yes, thanks for asking. Turns out tumbling off the little Vespa all those years ago had little to do with my age. My experience level (zero) and the fact that I was thrown in at the deep end with no real training or even thought to the consequences definitely did. But not my age. Having now spent a lifetime riding, driving, racing and yes crashing motorcycles, cars and of late my Mountain Bike, I think it’s got more to do with 1) the ability to identify, and 2) to learn to live comfortably on – or at least very close to – the edge of available grip.
Some people – the likes of Graeme Crosby, Scott Dixon and Shane Van Gisbergen – seem to be born with it, others appear to be able to learn it, and the rest, well, they’re probably just like me!
As always this is just my opinion. Here at www.talkmotorsport.co.nz we welcome feedback. So whether you agree or disagree sign up and comment. We’d love to hear from you!
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