Natalie Kane
Published: 21st January 2008
Author: Words and photos by Alex Hodgkinson
Her style’s so super-sweet even Stefan Everts is tipping her as a future world champ but can Natalie Kane go all the way to the top?
Natalie Kane only turned 16 last month but no lesser personality that record champ Stefan Everts reckons the 5ft 4ins bundle of dynamite from Banbridge, 20 miles from Belfast, is poised to become Ireland’s first ever motocross world champion!
There can be no doubt that the women’s world series, upgraded next summer to full world championship status, has been THE success story of the last couple of seasons. The racing at the sharp end is as good as you will find anywhere and the girls’ presence has even taught the boys a few manners!
So how come an Ulster teenage girl got interested in what was, until so recently, a playground for men and boys? “Most of my family have ridden motocross. My mum Loretta and my dad Gabriel both rode, in fact that’s where they met. They weren’t that good - well dad was all right - but mum just did it for fun. They stopped racing when my sister was born.”
That didn’t stop the family going to the races of course and it was only a couple of years before Kanes were chasing round fields on bikes again. “I had a quad when I was three for riding round the paddock and when I was five I got a PW50. My sister raced too until she had to move onto the small wheel 85. She just rode round for fun and didn’t do the jumps so she stopped racing because she was afraid of getting landed on.”
But there was never any chance of Natalie ‘just riding round’ as the lads she has beaten through her years in the youth division will testify!
“We don’t have a girls-only class in Ulster, there’s just not enough of us, so you have to race with the boys. That’s tougher so you have to try that wee bit harder. Every year a few more girls start racing in Ulster. There’s a load on the wee 50s but most of them fade away when they come to the 125s. As you get older the competition with the boys gets harder and most of the girls lose interest then.”
Not a problem for Natalie who has won Ulster and Irish championships on the 65s and the 80s and even left her mark in the British youth ranks. “I did the BYMX in the 65s. I’ve also done the All Girls championships and I’ve won every year on 85 except two years ago when I missed the start of my race after they changed the order after practice and nobody told us.”
So how do the boys react to getting beaten by a girl? “We’ve raced together from the very start so most of them don’t try to take advantage. It’s not like they see the hair hanging out of the back of my helmet and go straight for me. They have respect for me and treat me as an equal. But there are some boys when you’re practising, when they see that you’re a girl, they will just go straight for you and try to take you out - some of them will do everything because they don’t want it to be said that they’ve been beaten by a girl, even in practice.”
But the days of youth racing for the Kanes ended last summer as Natalie, then 15, decided she wanted to race the Women’s World Cup. “Once I raced the MX2 bike I couldn’t go back to 85s but I wanted to race the world cup.”
And on her series debut at Uddevalla in Sweden Natalie was already running the pace of the leaders, a feat even more remarkable given it was the first time she had ever raced a 250F - and a borrowed one at that!
It wasn’t the first time she’d rolled up at a meeting with a two-fiddy four-popper but a problem with her shoulder meant she didn’t actually make it to the point-paying races.
“I didn’t get past practice. It actually started a year-and-a-half ago when the suspension bust going to the take-off of a jump at Ballykelly and spun me off. Because I got knocked out and was complaining of a sore neck they never realised that my shoulder had been dislocated and had gone back in itself.
“But it didn’t go in right and had trapped a nerve. It felt funny when you touched it but it was a year later when I was in France for the MX Masters kids that we first realised the problem. A stone hit my shoulder and it went dead. The doctors found the nerve damage and muscle decay. The nerve’s dead now and I just have to try to build the other muscles up around it so I’ve been doing a lot of exercise.
“It’s coming better gradually but it’s taking time. At first I could only do 10 minutes and my shoulder would go dead and I couldn’t feel the throttle. That’s what happened in Sweden. I couldn’t feel the throttle and shot off the track but now I’m doing some good exercises and it’s coming good.”
The shoulder injury has restricted Natalie to just a handful of races throughout 2007. “I raced once in March but I only did the first race and it popped out again so when the first round of the World Cup in Germany came around I had to watch. It was good to watch the other girls - I could see where you could get time up, see where they do something wrong that can be to my advantage. But it’s even better to watch the boys to see where you can get faster! It wasn’t until two days before we set off for Sweden that I got to ride for the first time since March.”
Incredibly, Natalie was setting top three times all day on the Saturday at Uddevalla. “Yes, I led first practice until the last lap and had the speed all weekend. The first three laps I was right there but then my shoulder kept going dead.”
And then came the next setback. “In qualifying the back wheel slid out when I landed off the step-up and high-sided me off. I landed on my left side but when I got home the doctor said that I’d shocked the nerve. That’s why, after I had over-jumped in the first race, I had to pull off the second race. I was afraid of getting hurt so I just pulled in on the first lap.
“My shoulder was sore and my mum and dad didn’t want me to ride again that day but I wanted to try. Then on the first lap in the sweeper before the tabletop the track was wet, I just slid into it and tweaked my shoulder again. I had no feeling and was afraid of getting hurt. I had to stop then.”
Assistance to this point had come from Holeshot Moto-X but before the world cup finale at Lierop the Motovision boys had sat up and taken notice. And, with Jake Nicholls out of action for the rest of the year, they only needed to change one digit on each plate from Jake’s 45 to Natalie’s 44.
“I’ll holeshot at least one moto,” promised Natalie before racing and she was true to her word. But, more than that, the Irish lass showed that lack of bike time was not going to slow her and the fact she was just two seconds off Kathi Prumm underlined that she had arrived on the world stage.
“I’ll probably do the main British youth series next year - I’ll be the only girl doing it. And then in 2009 I want to do the adult championships. And next year I want to try to win the world championship. I’m convinced I can do it. Then in a few years time, when I get a bit stronger, hopefully try to qualify for a man’s GP!
“And after that maybe America. I’ve been there two years ago to race in the amateurs. We were supposed to go out at the end of this year but I think it will be better just to stay and practice ready for next year.”
Home Help - Pulling together
“Holeshot Moto-X give me Smith goggles and stuff for the bike but after that my parents have to get the money however they can. Mum’s a cook and dad’s a lorry driver but for the last few weeks no-one’s been working so I can go out practising. Every weekend there’s a race back home in Ulster but the tracks aren’t very good - all stony and stuff - so I’ve been spending my time practising instead. I don’t want another rock on my shoulder.
“You can’t practice at Desertmartin or Ballykelly but there’s one sand track that you’re allowed to go to on Tuesdays, Thursdays and at the weekends but there’s not many jumps - it’s just sand. And then I have a wee hardpack track of my own, just a small patch of land which I rent but it’s not very good. But the sand at home is like hardpack compared to Lierop.
“My cousin Sean does the British and we go practising together. He’s actually a bit faster than me but I will try to catch him and he tries to get away so that pulls me on. Other than that I just have my dad telling me what to do and then it’s just me wanting to do it, to get better and practising every day.
“Gordon Crockard was obviously a role model. I was at Genk with my family the year he won it. And now Motovision has taken me on and can hopefully take me to the GPs next year. That’s what I really want.
“I’ve already left school. Taking off so many days it was getting my mum into trouble. Basically I just ride motocross - practising and racing. I’m not worried about what comes after, I’ll just take it as it comes.”
Stefan Says - Future world champ?
“She is a very good rider. She was riding the 250 for the very first time when she came to my training camp in Spain last winter but she looked like she had ridden it for a long time.
Her desire is incredible, also her style on the bike is very good. She has a good feeling for the bike but she needs to get her shoulder sorted out, to get it strong enough.
“She’s been riding too soon every time and when she crashes she puts herself back. Her first priority has to be to get her shoulder sorted out, until she does she’s just going to keep hurting it. But if she does that she will get very good in the future and, in my opinion, she can be world champion one day.”