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| Red Bull Honda Peak Performance Fitness carries out all the strength and conditioning for Red Bull Honda, and will continue to do so for the 2006 season. The teams full time trainer Darren works with the riders to keep them in top physical and mental condition throughout the year using a combination of basic resistance training and cardio vascular training, but also using some advanced SAQ techniques which are...secret! He also has to try and look after their diets, no easy thing when dealing with two teenagers. The team has two riders in two different classes, this means Darren
has his work cut out as each rider requires different physical attributes
for the bike they race. But it's not all doom gloom and smashing
weights about - Darren takes them for boxing and un-armed combat,
handy things to know if someone puts you in the gravel...... |
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Eugene Laverty # 50
Jonathan Rea # 65 Moved from Supersport to British Superbike on the Red Bull Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade in 2005, and at 17 yrs old is the youngest superbike rider in the world. Jonathan's season was cut short in 2004 after a horrific crash at Knockhill shattered his femur. After several operations, intensive physio at Belfast hospital and training with Darren – he started the season fighting fit with the high point being a pole position and lap record at Modello Park. He followed this up with a number of front row starts showing the rest of the BSB field what’s to come in 2006.
Chris Jones 1990 - 2005 Chris was tragically killed in a start line incident at Cadwell Park in August 2005 – Chris was a true champion in the making and indeed had won every two wheel championship he’d rode in. Motorcycle Racer magazine, who Darren is a columnist for, published the following tribute from him
‘…Words of comfort or trying to rationalise about this tragedy are pointless. Where I find solace is thinking about Chris’s talent, which was beyond question and Red Bull Honda were luck to have the luxury of being able to select him for the Rookies programme. I had no doubt that I would be watching him in GP’s in a few years and sending him abusive text messages as he would have binned us all off to relax in his motor home with his supermodel girlfriend. It was my job to patch him back together after an off (which they were plenty of at the beginning of the season!), and Cadwell was no different as I had him covered in all sorts of tape and ice packs. Watching him disappear in a cloud of two stroke towards the grid, it wasn’t in the front of my mind that will be the last time I saw him – and so it shouldn’t be. Chris was living his dream and was going all the way, there’s no time to think about what might happen in a race apart from getting a podium. I’m just extremely fortunate to be able to say I worked with
the kid, and he’ll live on racing bikes in my heart. He gave
me his bottle of champagne from his 2nd place at Silverstone to
celebrate the birth of my daughter Lilly-Mae 6 days previously,
and when she’s old enough I’ll be able to tell her all
about him…’ |
