Looking forward to his first experience of the MotoGP at Silverstone. 18 June 2010

World Champion Derek Redmond is renowned for his legendary career as a British athlete. But since retiring, he is facing a brand new challenge which has become his new passion.

Derek has taken a crash course in motorbike racing and now set up his own team, Derek Redmond Racing. During his athletics career, Derek held the British record for the 400 metres and won gold medals in the 4x400 metres relay at the World Championships, European Championships and Commonwealth Games.

Derek is relishing the opportunity to watch the action live at the MotoGP this weekend: “Silverstone is my favourite circuit. I’m looking forward to see the best in the world compete at the best circuit in the world!

“It will be my first ever experience of a MotoGP so it doesn’t get any better, plus it is on my doorstep and the MotoGP is back to Silverstone after a long time. I only live about six miles away from Silverstone and we raced there a few weeks ago in the Hottrax Endurance Series. It’s a brand new circuit; they must have spent millions so it’s really exciting.”

“The highlight for me would be to see a MotoGP bike up close. Our bikes are worth about £8,000 to £10,000 but these bikes are worth up to £1m which is unbelievable. They are just made for racing and every bike is a bespoke design.”

Derek continued, “As a youngster, I didn’t really follow motorbikes and they didn’t really mix with athletics. I knew Carl Fogarty and that was about it. I have learned more in four years about my new sport than I did in the rest of my life really. I have just used the sportsman’s mentality to be the best I can and go for it

“I only learned to ride a motorbike four years ago and did a crash course of lessons within five days before taking my test so it was pretty intense. I started riding on track in 2007 and went to the California Super Bikes School and Ron Haslam School to improve my skills. Within two years, I took part in 60 track racing days to get the experience I needed and at the end of 2008, I took part in my first competitive race in Spain. It was an open novice race and was nervous but I knew I had to give it a go and hoped to come in the top half of the race. I ended up coming 13th out of 40 which I was thrilled with. That’s when I made my decision to race competitively in the UK and to set up my own team.

“Once I had learned how to ride properly, I guess you could say I got the bug and I wanted to be as good as I could. After retiring from athletics, I had played some basketball and rugby, so this was my new passion and I fell in love with motorbikes.

“It wasn’t difficult to find riders and our team has been together for a year. It was more difficult to find sponsorship but now Dunlop and Lazers sponsor out tyres and helmets and we share the rest of the costs between us.”

Derek’s team has competed in the Hottrax Endurance Series and over seven rounds and six hours, the team came second out of 18 in their very fist year. This year the Derek Redmond racing team entered in the three hour series taking 12th place out of 56 after three rounds. They are aiming to finish with a top 10 place.

“It is mad to think that the top racers start out on mini bikes at the age of about four. I started running when I was seven but was certainly not thinking about racing bikes, so maybe it’s a bit late for me now!”

Derek has forged a successful career as a motivational speaker and is now managed by Definitive sports management.