Year of the Ratt?

By TMX Archives on 16th Mar 06

Motocross

He was the crown prince after his buddy BT moved up to MX1 but Tyla Rattray's 2005 world title-chasing ambitions were put on hold when he bust his shoulder at the Portuguese GP.With a hat-trick of victories on his return to GP action at the end

He was the crown prince after his buddy BT moved up to MX1 but Tyla Rattray's 2005 world title-chasing ambitions were put on hold when he bust his shoulder at the Portuguese GP. With a hat-trick of victories on his return to GP action at the end of last summer, the 20-year-old from Durban put his name back in the frame. And he sets out on this campaign with just one aim - to enter the record books as South Africa's third world champ before following the path of Greg Albertyn and Grant Langston to the States. "Injury can happen to anybody anytime in our sport but I feel confident enough in my ability and my fitness to know that I don't need to push 100 per cent in the early races. I'm looking for good results to be in there in the points but I don't need to win in Zolder. "I'll take it if it's there but I'm not going to break my neck to beat Marc (De Reuver] there. Consistency will win the title and I'll settle for two seconds there. I'm going for the championship, not for race wins!" Ironically, it was the '05 injury which gave Styla the time to consider his future as he recovered from surgery on both the shoulder and a knee which had been niggling for some time. Already one of the fittest boys on the track, he put the enforced sabbatical to good use. "Being out for half of last season really brought home to me how important it was to have good basic fitness. I was out cycling for two-and-a-half hours and running for an hour every day. It was no surprise to me when I came back and won the final three GPs. "And I was still too heavy then. I don't think I've ever been lazy but I'm getting out of that teenage stage and I definitely need to be more precise with my training. I put on a lot of weight when I was back home with no racing and spending a lot of time drinking and partying. But I am already seven kilos lighter than last year and I'm still trying to lose a little more - I don't want to let Cairoli holeshot every GP! "I knew when I came back that I was ready to start winning again straight away because I didn't actually race until I was ready. I had been back on the bike for several weeks and I knew I would still be strong at the end of two motos. "I worked hard on base training again while I was back home in SA from November to January so I'm ready for it this year. The weather was good, I was out cycling every day and I've worked a lot on my shoulders and they are a lot stronger now. My knee too is now 100 per cent. I have two gym exercise programmes, one day combining five sets of exercises for shoulders and two sets for my legs and the next day doing five with the legs and two with the shoulders. When I went for the fitness tests with KTM they told me my level was unbelievable. "I've already been doing motos in Italy since I got back and we've done a lot of work on the starts. I won Lierop last year from dead last but I'm a factory rider and I shouldn't have been getting those starts I got last year. "KTM sent me a factory bike down to SA to train on and when I got back I rode my new race bike - they've changed the gearbox and we've been trying different exhausts and carburettors. I feel we have a good set-up now. "I've done a lot of starts in Belgium and in Italy and I've been practising them with Georges Jobe behind a proper startgate and he's helped me a lot. He's given me tips with body position and it's definitely helped. We talked about things like corner speed too - he's a real asset to the whole KTM team. He has such a strong head and is helping us all out. He is still able to relate to the modern machine and he sees us riding when we change something on the bike and can often tell us what we are doing wrong. He is analysing the change by watching us." Still, Tyla knows that the world series is no cakewalk. "Cairoli will be tough. He has the title and he will want to keep it. His greatest strength are his starts - he gets out of the gate so fast and that was what led him to learn the speed of running at the front back in 2004. Once you're up there every week you learn the speed. But I'm a year smarter too!

For full story don't miss the April issue of dbr - on sale now!

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