— Luca Gardner to compete in the 2013 Campeonato Mediterráneo de Velocidad
Luca Gardner, the youngest son of former 500cc Motorcycle Champion Wayne Gardner, will ride for Barcelona based Briefing Competició in his debut season of the Campeonato Mediterráneo de Velocidad (CMV), riding in the Pre-Moto 3 category. Luca will ride a Moriwaki MD250, a machine he has been training on at various circuits throughout Spain in the past twelve months.
“Briefing Competició are the Spanish importer for Moriwaki accessories and very well qualified to run Luca in this championship. They have competed at various levels of motorcycle racing over the past 7 years, including Endurance and Road Races, and after meeting the team at a recent test at Calafat Circuit, we felt they would be the perfect operation to support Luca in his first full season on the MD250,” said Wayne Gardner.
Team Manager for Briefing Competició Lidia San Mamés said the team is very excited about working with Luca this season. “We were very honoured when Wayne asked us if we were interested in running Luca in the CMV with a Moriwaki machine. For our team it’s a new project very important to us,” she said
Luca has a history of dirt track and long track racing in Australia, and competed in a number of national road racing events prior to the Gardner family moving to Spain. Wayne has been training with Luca to prepare him to enter the highly competitive CMV, and the race season cannot come soon enough for the enthusiastic thirteen year old. “It feels like I’ve been waiting forever to start racing here in Spain. I love riding my Moriwaki and can’t wait to see how I can go racing against the other riders and see how I can improve my riding during the year,” said an excited Luca.
When Luca tested at Calafat Circuit a few weeks ago he improved his previous time by 4 seconds a lap after putting in some solid track time and working closely with Wayne on the bike set up. “It was great to see Luca improve after having quite a few months off from riding. I think this is going to be an exciting year for him. We’re going to work through the same training processes I’ve implemented with his older brother Remy and it will be great to see how he can fine tune his riding style and feeling for how the Moriwaki is performing. I’ve always placed a great deal of importance on understanding bike set up and being able to relate this to our mechanics and engineers, and Luca and I will be doing a lot of work in this area this season,” said Wayne.
Team Gardner Racing’s long term brand partners Virgin Australia, Alpinestars and Airoh Helmets have re-signed agreements to support Luca and his brother Remy again this season. “Finding brand partners and sponsorship in this tough Spanish economic climate has been very difficult for us, and we’re extremely grateful for the support and confidence our renewing partners have for Team Gardner Racing. We’ve always worked hard to provide a beneficial partnership and will continue to do the best we can for our supporters,” Wayne stated.
Luca’s first race of five will be at Alcarras, a circuit he has tested at a number of times previously, on Sunday 31 March.
