barrygrussell
Senior Member
First I will declare an interest, as, along with my business partner, Anouk Marchand, I am the agent and manager for Michael Kongaubon (aka Mickey Walker).
That said, the reasons for being Mickey’s manager are compelling. While working with the Federation of Motor Sports Clubs of Thailand (FMSCT) in 2011, one of the projects we launched was to get another Thai racer into Moto3, the class that will replace the 125 two-strokes as the junior MotoGP class. When Anouk, who has extensive experience of working with MotoGP racers, including a world champion, saw Mickey at Thailand Circuit in August, she immediately singled out Mickey as having the personal qualities and the talent to succeed at the international level.
Other priorities – not least Thailand’s national flood disaster – led to the project being dropped officially. Anouk and I continued with it as we had created good momentum and obtained a provisional place for Mickey in Worldwide Race, a team that already has two world championships to its name.
While 20 year-old Mickey is charismatic and popular figure in Thai motorcycle racing, he is nevertheless an outsider. Coming from a family of modest means, he did not go through the highly regarded Honda Race School, but together with his father, built his own race bike and taught himself to race by watching MotoGP videos. He won the Kawasaki Mini GP 250 Modify Championship for Panadda Racing in 2010, his first full competitive season, and won the R2M Classic 400 and Superbike Rookie SB-2 championships for Panpund Team in 2011.
I first met Mickey in June, when I was giving the prizes at an R2M event at Thailand Circuit and ended up presenting him with no fewer than three winner’s trophies. I chatted with him in Parc Ferme and was engaged by his enthusiasm and the way he carried himself as well as by what he achieved that day. At the next race meeting we spoke further and I asked what he wanted from racing. Was it just enjoyment, or something more? His smile vanished and he looked straight into my eyes and told me he wanted to race in MotoGP.
Michael Kongaubon Walker has something extra that convinced us to back him for a world championship ride. His natural speed and bike control are outstanding, but not unrivalled. What makes him special is that he displays the raw personal qualities of a champion, including a deep-rooted belief in his own ability, an indomitable spirit and the certainty that when he gets on a bike he will do everything to win, an attitude that makes some teams and bike owners reluctant to give him a bike for fear of getting it wrecked. In fact he only suffered two crashes during 2011, but they were both spectacular and earned him more notoriety than he perhaps deserves.
I have two anecdotes that illustrate the qualities that can make him a champion. Both events happened after we had signed him.
At the Supercar Thailand meeting at the beginning of October at Bira Circuit, he was competing the in Superbike C-Class on Herbert Hoffmann’s second Aprilia RS250. Mickey had never ridden a two-stroke before, but got his head down and made adjustments to the bike in practice and qualifying. In the first race on Saturday, his characteristic hard braking proved too much and the stoppers gave up at the end of the start-finish straight and he crashed heavily into the tyre wall, injuring his back, chest and left leg in the process. In hospital he was still smiling, but barely able to move, so racing the next day was out of the question. In the evening he called me to say he was in too much pain to meet for dinner and needed to rest.
When I got to Bira at just after 9:00am on Sunday Mickey was on track in free practice. Herbert told me he had arrived at the garage early and the two of them had worked to repair the battered Aprilia. We checked his lap times we saw he was going faster than the previous day. Apart from a slight limp, everything seemed normal about the rider. In the race, with his superior corner speed he made a nuisance of himself with the 1000cc bikes and fought through to take the C-Class win, to his obvious delight, even though he had to be helped onto and off the top step of the podium. After the race, one of the superbike riders complained to me that Mickey had been leaning on him in the corners. I tried not to smile.
The second example was during the Motorcycle Mag Rounds 4 and 5, which were held over the Christmas weekend at Bira. In the lead up, together with British Superbike crew chief David Cherry, we had tried to get a bike prepared for the Moto3 Production class, but lost the support of the parties we needed to complete it and get the entry. Then we tried to get a superbike, but kept hitting the objection, “I’m not letting Mickey Walker ride my bike, he might crash it.” Then a friend who was entered in the Novice SB-3 class said Mickey could ride the bike in SB-2. When the owner of the bike, the SB-3 rider’s father, found out we heard the objection again and, after just one free practice session, all seemed lost.
Then Herbert Hoffmann, a man who truly embodies the spirit of motorcycle racing, stepped in and offered his bike once again – which still had Mickey’s trademark 555 (“ha ha ha” in Thai) on the front fairing. We had missed qualifying, so he lined up at the back of the grid in the SB-3 race. Bad luck struck as he came in from the warm-up lap when the clutch cable popped out and distraught racer paddled the bike to the side of the track as the red lights went out for the start of the race. Herbert put up a good fight with the big bikes to claim third place, after which he and Mickey set to work on the second RS250 to ensure that there would be no more setbacks the following day.
Sunday 25th December saw the Aprilia go well in the morning free practice sessions and Mickey got a good start in the race, using his experience and handling advantage to work his way quickly through to second place in the twisty sections and gradually hauled in the leader. An enthralled crowd watched the David and Goliath battle and cheered loudly when the green two-stroke took the lead and kept it through to the chequered flag. As the team celebrated the organiser’s confirmed their warning that the 250 two-stroke could not qualify for prizes and Mickey by-passed Parc Ferme and rode straight back to the garage. When questioned, officials explained that an exception had been made for Herbert only and that no other 250 rider could collect prizes in the superbike category. While his supporters became increasingly outraged, the rider shrugged it off saying, “It’s no problem, I won the race. When I started I knew I couldn’t win a trophy.”
Now, together with leading sponsorship agent, Paul Poole, we are working to raise money for the 2012 season. With less than half the world championship Moto3 teams fully financed at the time of writing, largely because of the dire state of western economies, we are optimistic about getting the money and winning a late entry to Moto3 or, at the least, getting him into a top national championship in Spain, Germany or Britain.
One thing is for sure: whenever and wherever this remarkable young Thai rider gets on a race bike, there will be a story to be told.
