Rui Goncalves
Published: 21st January 2008
Author: Words and photos by Alex Hodgkinson
It’s been a long, slow process but after six years in GPs Rui Goncalves has finally earned himself a factory ride…
It’s been a long, hard road through satellite teams but Rui Goncalves has finally made it to the big time. And after weeks of uncertainty at the end of the summer, the 22-year-old Portu-geezer didn’t need to wait for the official proclamation with an orange letterhead when I asked him the latest at Budds Creek.
“I’ll be racing for the KTM Red Bull factory team in 2008. That’s what I’ve been working for all year, to get a factory ride. I already improved when I got on KTM the last two years and now a factory ride will be really good for me.”
But the diminutive stylist from Vidago, high in the mountains in the north of Portugal, is also under no misapprehensions that he must deliver. “Now I’ve got the ride I need to show I can be in there every race. I’ve been a little inconsistent with some good races and some bad races until now but if you’re going to be up there at the end of the year you have to be there every weekend.”
It seems strange to realise that Rui will not be 23 until next summer - he seems to have been around for so long. “Yes, I won the Portuguese SX title at 16, Casola were looking for a young rider, heard about me and I was plunged straight into GPs. I came as a little kid, leaving home to race the big-time and I’ve lived in Belgium ever since. I’m still young but I have a lot of experience.
“Two years Casola, two years Van Beers, two years Silver Action. I think I had a natural progression through those years but it was really slow. I was building up, just improving little things.”
In four years on Yamaha Rui went 24-18-16-10, nothing earth-shattering but enough to keep the teams interested. But it was at the ’06 GP opener that Rui started to rock!
“It was when I stepped onto the KTM and started getting holeshots. Zolder was my first GP for KTM and I holeshot and led for many laps. That sort of thing gives you so much confidence, makes you feel so comfortable on the bike, being able to run up front for a time. And now, a year-and-a-half later, I can ride up front and finish on the podium.
“It probably wasn’t just the bike but when you change bike after four years and immediately see progress... My motivation was so high anyway to prove myself when I changed team and bike and when you start to see progression, it just gives you the incentive to work even harder and improve even more.”
There were to be no podiums during 2006 but two helpings of double-figure scores virtually every weekend from mid-summer meant Rui saw off Searle, MacKenzie, Seb Pourcel and Swanny to be ranked seventh behind six full factory bikes. It was the perfect platform for ’07 - but fate intervened.
An invitation to race in New Zealand in BT’s home town of Taupo seemed great at the time and indeed Rui was going wheel to wheel with the ’04 world champ when they touched. “I broke my arm and was out for two-and-a-half months which took me until the end of January. But then it was okay. I started riding again, everything was going well and I just had a silly crash at Lommel, lost the front wheel, got flipped over the bars, folded my arm under and landed on my shoulder. My collarbone just snapped.
“I mean, I’d only just got back on the bike and that meant I was effectively five months off the bike. I kept hoping right up to the last minute that I would be able to race Valkenswaard but it was never going to happen. I only rode four times before Spain and I could qualify so that was like a victory for me. Then I just kept stepping up my goals from week to week but the first half of the season was really difficult.
“Of course it was depressing. After what I had achieved in ’06 I had expected more but I just needed to deal with it. When I finished 15th I just had to keep on working to come back but it doesn’t happen overnight. You can’t go crazy. If you push too hard before you are 100 per cent ready again you can make another mistake so I just tried to build it slowly and by the second half of the year I was there.”
The two seasons with Silver Action have been good for both rider and team with team manager Fulvio Crippa’s outfit advancing to genuine factory support team and Rui being treated to full factory bikes by the end of the summer.
“I’ve had a good two years with Silver Action. They are a professional team with a good image and they have some good assistance from the factory. They are not factory but everybody in the team works hard, pushing to improve.”
It was heart-breaking for all concerned to see podiums evaporate in the closing laps of GPs in both ’06 and in Sweden last summer through mechanical DNFs but Rui looks on it philosophically. “KTM had won the MX2 world title in ’04 with the SX250F but you have to remember that the production bike was very different and still quite new. My DNFs were not mistakes of the team, it’s just the sort of things which happens with a new bike. If I had been racing for 20th we wouldn’t even be talking about it but because I was headed for the podium everybody notices.
“But I never dwelt on that. I just took the good part - that I was fast enough to have been on the podium - and took that with me to the next race, looking to show that speed again. You know, I was still just on an SX at Uddevalla back in July.”
By Namur, where that long-awaited podium finally came, Rui had full factory kit but that was not the only change in his life mid-summer. A certain Stefan Everts started to get involved. “We started working together three weeks before Sweden. I was still struggling to come back from my injury when we started to work together and that race was a sudden big step.
“Stefan has been awesome. He has been calling me to go riding and gives me some tips, some direction to my training but above all he gives me so much confidence. That’s the biggest thing - it gives me confidence knowing he is there. He calls on all the experience he has and tries to transfer it to me. It’s not easy because at the end of the day I am the one who has to do it but he knows how and his advice is invaluable.
“When I started with Stefan he got me riding 40-minute motos straight away to help the endurance. I was still a little bit out of pace coming from my injury but doing the 40 minutes he taught me to be consistent over an entire race. That’s what he’s been doing himself all these years, riding so consistently.
“We’ve been trials riding to try to help me learn his flowing style, standing on the footpegs and so on. I’m really looking forward to the future and hope that together we can make things work. I’m really happy that I have a guy like this behind me. The last years I have been working alone. I had Yves Demeulemeester as trainer but I didn’t have anybody to help me on the track. Yves could control my physical training but he couldn’t tell me how to ride, how to put it into effect in racing.”
But after podiums at Namur and Moneyglass Rui was off the pace at Donington. “I just struggled with the track in England. Already on Saturday I was finding it difficult to set up the bike right there. It was just a bad weekend. But I just put it out of my mind and at Lierop I was back on the pace. And I just missed the podium again there even after crashing in the first race.
“Donington was not a good weekend for us but that’s another good thing about Stefan. When you’re struggling he looks for the good points and moves further. That is the attitude which won him so many championships.”
But there are a couple of things which Rui has to sort out this winter before he challenges for the crown next summer. First up, it stands out that Rui usually performs better in race two.
“Yes. I have struggled a bit with armpump in the first motos. I was always loosened up for the second moto and that helps a lot. It’s something I’ve always had. I ride a little tight in the first moto. It’s something we have to work out for next year.”
And by the time you read this Rui will have been under the knife. “I have a plate and seven screws in my right forearm which need to get taken out, also the pin I still have on my right collarbone. I’ve been riding a little bit like Robocop because of the plates. Once they’re out I need to wait four to five weeks before I get back on a bike but then it’s all systems go to get ready for 2008.”
And, despite his supercross background, Rui is fully committed to the GPs. “I am contracted to the GP team for three years so I’ll be a little bit old to think about SX after that anyway but I’m not thinking about America at all at the moment. I want to be focused on the GPs. KTM signed me to win something for them in the next three years and that has to be my aim.
“I guess the best way to start would be to holeshot Valkenswaard and lead all race to take the win. That would be perfect!”
New Friends
Tommy
“We were together between Ireland and Donington, he’s a nice kid. I guess he will be in England most of the time and I’ll be in Belgium but I’m sure we will have some good fun together.”
Tyla
“I never had any problems with Tyla. He’s a good guy too, we’ve seen each other a lot in Belgium for a couple of years already and we have trained together before. The whole team looks great.”
Stefan Says - Pulling together
“I was already expecting a lot from him at the end of ’06 but then he got hurt and it was difficult for him for the first half of 2007. But we started working together in the middle of the summer and it’s worked out well.”
So how come Rui can benefit so much from you, is it because he has a neat, easy style? “No, I think the single biggest thing is that he doesn’t have half-a-dozen people in his other ear telling him what to do at the same time. He listens intensely to what I say and goes out and does it. He wants to succeed, has seen that what we have done together works and he wants more. We are both pulling together.”