Leon Haslam’s victory in the opening World Superbike round meant quite a lot to me - but for a rather odd reason. As it happens, I know Leon, and his lovely partner Ollie, rather well. I have known Leon for a long time but in 2007, he was our star rider at the Thundersprint (www.thundersprint.com) and it was there that I got to appreciate him.

Working with a rider is very different from doing an interview as a journalist - or waiting for a brief word as a fan. The rider and event organizer spend a lot of time together in what can be a highly pressured environment and you really get to know each other. During what was a long weekend I discovered that Leon is one of the most courteous, helpful and kind people on the planet - and those traits rarely go with being a world class motorcycle racer.

Here is a little story which might well show you a different side to the Leon you will read about in race reports. At the 2007 Thundersprint, we ran a competition - the prize for which was to meet Leon and Ollie and have dinner with them. So far, so good. This sort of arrangement is fairly common both for organizers and the more PR aware amongst the professional riders. The rider does his hand shaking and smiling, chats to the competition winner and, having fulfilled his contract, disappears.

Leon was utterly charming at dinner and gossiped to the competition winners as if they were old friends. Ollie is just as lovely and joined in the meal with elegance, grace and perfect manners. Together, they were the classiest of class acts.
The competition winners were having a fabulous time and Leon and Ollie sensed this. Purely out of kindness, after the meal Team Haslam took the happy pair to a local pub and spent a further three hours socializing with them. Leon and Ollie didn’t do this because it was in their contract, or because I had encouraged them to go the extra mile, but quite simply because it was a good thing to do.

At the following day’s Thundersprint, Leon must have signed a million autographs, kissed a thousand babies and had his photograph taken by every teenage girl in the Northwest of England, yet throughout he remained charming, full of good grace and completely respectful of our fans. That needs stressing. Unlike many professional racers Leon and Ollie realize who pays their wages and treat ordinary race fans with complete courtesy and respect.

On the track, Leon is 101% competitor with the courage of a lion. He is frightened of nothing, and no-one, and is in every way the complete racer. But do try to meet him off the track because you will leave feeling better about humanity. Best of all, Leon is a perfect rebuttal to the current view that you have to be ruthless, selfish and discourteous to be a success. All aspiring young men and women should look to Leon and Ollie as proof that good grace, and impeccable manners, are just as important as egocentric determination.

Classic Racers Take Advice From Olympic Snow Athletes
I would like to conclude this edition of STM with a footnote about the Winter Olympics in Canada. In the absence of bike racing on TV, I must confess to having watched some of the winter sports. Since we have no mountains in England, and anything more than an inch of snow brings our country to a complete halt, having an Englishman study snow sports is not unlike expecting a eunuch to get excited about a soft porn film.

Nevertheless, on the grounds that I can, in perfect visibility and with fresh snow, ski down a gentle slope without crashing more than three times, I felt empowered to give my critiques on the racing. My new found wisdom did not please Carol (wife, best friend, business partner and mechanic) who has not yet psyched herself up for me watching this season’s MotoGP on TV and explaining to her in detail just how Rossi has chosen the wrong line or Casey Stoner missed his braking point on Lap 3.

In terms of the racing, I was utterly stunned not only at these snow racers’ ability but the size of their cojones. Plummeting off the side of a snow covered precipice in thick fog looked to be so dangerous that it was worth avoiding at all costs. Racing down was only one step away from being certified bonkers and having a nice nurse feed you a range of powerful sedatives.

Yet, it was not the Olympians’ ability on the snow which impressed me so much as their breathtaking TV skills. Some poor bloke lost an Olympic Gold by .01 of a second and then smiled to the camera and shook his opponent’s hand. No helmet throwing, corner worker threatening and mechanic bashing here. Just gleaming white teeth, rippling muscles bulging from beneath his clingy Lycra cat suit and pure telegenic magnificence.

So, my late New Year’s resolution is to become the Olympic athlete of the classic racing world. Henceforth, I will accept defeat with good grace. I will not sit in the back of our car sucking my thumb and sulking because the grid marshal put me one row back from where I should have been and I will get my teeth whitened for TV interviews and the hundreds of stunningly attractive girl fans who will be desperate to get to know me.

I mentioned this new policy to Carol who laughed. Classic racers, she explained, were too far down the ecological ladder to be anything other than dysfunctionally bad losers - not to say extremely ugly and with teeth the same color as middle-aged warthogs. And, by the way, I would be much better served by concentrating on the most pressing problem I face at present: losing 20 lbs of Christmas fat from around my waist or I’m not going to get into my leathers.

I’ll bet the snow deities in the Olympics don’t get treated like this!