Brookesy talks season 2012 build-up
We’re already into the second race of the season at Thruxton, but as everyone always asks what I get up to in Australia during the off-season, I’ll start there.
Initially when I got home at the end of last season I just stopped doing anything that was remotely training orientated, even though my daily lifestyle in Australia is probably someone else’s version of training. Mentally it was my time off and I wasn’t programming myself to be ready for something. I thought that’s it we’re done. Time to relax and have some fun.
It really was good to do that and completely reset, as in years before I’ve gone home and felt like I needed to punish myself for the results I wasn’t getting or needing earlier in the season. Basically I wasn’t getting break.
I really did completely switch off this year: I hung out with friends and chilled out. I was still riding motorbikes and went Mountain Biking a bit, but it was all on a fun level. If we only rode for half an hour and had fun, that was the motivation and not to do it for certain amount of hours at a certain heart rate like I would when I’m training pre-season.
Most of things I did up until Christmas were like that, just having fun; then straight after the New Year I was like, bang! Back into training. It wasn’t an intense schedule, as I couldn’t throw myself back into that routine immediately after a couple of months of just cruising.
Although it didn’t take a lot to get back into a routine. It was broken up a bit trying to get things organised for this year: chasing things up for the Visa, running into the city, posting things away. It all just broke my day and weeks up.
For some reason the weather in Sydney and my area had so much rain, which is unheard of in January and February. It wasn’t cold but just a pain for things I normally do for training. I managed to get a decent base level; then leading into coming over to Northern Ireland I had my head around it quite well.
Last year I’d never even been to Ireland before, so there were so many unknowns. This year I knew what to expect and I was straight into my training with Gordy [Crockard – former motocross GP rider]. Often you can’t find someone in this game who has the same lifestyle pattern you have, unless it’s someone you race against; and you don’t want to train with one of those guys as you’re only helping them to beat you. Gordy has similar motivation to me, so it kind of works both of us training together.
It’s the same with the bike and the team this year: I don’t have any uncertainties about the GSX-R1000 Superbike as I know it will be good on track and I sort of know where I’m going with it. Not going to Spain also helped as well as I was able to form some sort of routine straight away when I landed in Northern Ireland. Last year I was only there a day or two, and then I was away pretty much for a month.
Now I know everywhere I’m going and back in the workshop the guys now know what I like and need; it’s kind of made the process of coming from Australia… it’s not seamless as it feels quite a turbulent period, but certainly a lot better than last year.
I’m a lot more relaxed but we’ll see how it goes in the racing. That normally determines a lot of things for me in life. If I’m racing well and the results are coming, then my personality and my lifestyle sort of reflect that. If I’m not happy with the results and things aren’t working for me it snowballs and I get quite upset and generally upset in life.
I’m hoping we’ll get an opportunity to do some more testing throughout the year. I had some little things frustrating me in testing that relates to a new bike. Sometimes you’re just unlucky but in testing I did almost match Alastair’s time around Kirkistown in pre-season, and he’s regarded as the best you’ll get around there. To have been that fast pre-season was pretty good.
At Brands in the opening race… well I felt a bit unlucky not to be able to maximise the pole position time, but the conditions were tough and I suppose we saved an almost certain crash at Graham Hill and scored some points. I’ll be looking for similar in qualifying at Thruxton but certainly more in the races.