Brandon Demmery with Ride Rage Radio
RRR: One of the great things that we’ve been watching this year is the Ninja 300 Cup and coming into the last round the title is going to be decided, there’s only a couple of points in it. We spoke to Andy Lawson at the end of last round, leading into this round at Eastern Creek (Nov 21-23), we’re going to speak to another title protagonist, the reigning Australian 250 production champion, Brandon Demmery. Brandon, welcome to the show, what a fantastic season of racing you’ve provided us all with, some unbelievable races this year, congratulations on what the season has delivered to you so far, but I bet you’re looking forward to the challenge and the finale there at Sydney Motorsport Park.
Brandon: “Yeah, good afternoon boys. It’s been a pretty exciting championship and the most crazy I’ve been involved in, there’s been plenty of close racing and it’s been an amazing experience to get out there and learn off so many different riders that have been there up the front with Kyle and myself, that how it’s been, you know, Kyle and myself were the consistent ones out the front, so it’s been an interesting championship.”
RRR: Actually one of the things that we’ve said in the lead up to this segment is that the amount of riders that have been there at the front, it hasn’t been just the two. You guys have been there consistently, as you’ve said, but there’s been so many other guys in there as well, from the most experienced man in the paddock, Paul Young, all the way down to the young, fast Kiwi Bailee Perriton.
Brandon: “Yeah, we’ve got some awesome blokes that have been coming to the championship and they’re all extremely fast and they’ve all got their own knowledge that they’ve learned in their career and it’s definitely helped me out a bit and I’m sure it’s helped everybody else that’s been there, too.”
RRR: Now I know that you haven’t had the best of seasons luck-wise, I think it was before the round at South Australia, you were actually competing at Wakefield Park, completely and utterly destroyed your bike. The effort from your team, which is mainly, essentially your mum and your dad, to get that bike up and running or get a new bike up and running and have you perform the way you did at South Australia, that would have given you a fair bit of confidence for the rest of the year, because that was essentially a brand new bike and not the one that you’d been riding for the first round.
Brandon: “Yeah, we’ve been developing a bike all year. We haven’t had the full suspension in the bike until Winton, we didn’t get the full forks in there, so we’ve been a bit behind, we’ve had to rebuild the bike, so we didn’t have the budget to get it fully done. And it was a crappy experience to watch the bike tumble down the road at Wakefield, but you know, that’s what happens in racing, you have those bad weekends. South Australia again wasn’t my best weekend, but it was good to get out there and get a solid result and keep myself in the championship hunt and show it to Paul Young in the last race, he had been a bit of a pest I guess all day, all weekend, but you know, that’s what happens.”
RRR: Now speaking of weekends, good and bad, I believe you had a pretty weekend over there at the Kings of Wanneroo meeting, we spoke to Wayne Maxwell last week, so after he wrapped up the Superbike Class, you went over there and wrapped up one of the support classes.
Brandon: “Yeah, I went over there on a 250, I got an invite from Helmet House, a company over there that supports the 250 class and is pretty close friends with John and he invited me over to do the final round and try and spice things up a bit. And it was interesting going over there, it’s a pretty cool track, it’s short and not very complex, but it definitely opens up a lot of good racing and gets you really thinking about where you can make up time on the other guys on such little bikes.”
RRR: And I think to, Tim Boujos who was racing in the ASBK last year, when you actually won that 250 championship, he’s from Western Australia so I imagine he would have been there and I also his partner Jessica Derrin, who’s pretty handy and doesn’t mind mixing it up with the boys just like Sophie Lovett does over there in the Eastern states.
Brandon: “Yeah, we stayed with Jess and Tim over there , Jess actually didn’t ride the last round, I was on her bike. So me and Tim were out there battling and so was a couple of others guys from over in Western Australia, so it was interesting, they’re all very different riders to what I’ve been riding with and again I’ve learned a lot off all of them and I didn’t quite get there to get the three wins. They outsmarted me on that last lap in the last race, but you know, that’s racing, can’t complain.”
RRR: Now apart from travelling all the way to Western Australia, you’ve also travelled a little bit further than that this year, I think the first time that you’ve actually travelled overseas this year to race, Brandon, how did all that go?
Brandon: “I went to Europe a couple of months ago and it wasn’t a very successful trip, got over there and I was on a brand new bike that had been built by EJC, so it wasn’t set up to anywhere near as good as good as the other kids were, who all had full settings in their suspension and getting the bike right.
“But I went over there with high hopes of getting a decent result, but I had a crash in second qualifying, so I missed out on a fair bit of track time and didn’t quite get in the lap times I would have preferred, but you know, I was pretty happy to even be on the grid over there and then in the race it bucketed down rain. If you watched the World Superbike race from Magny Course, you would have known how wet it was. So we were just after the last race, so you know, we were in pretty treacherous conditions and I just made a mistake and went down at turn 7 in the first lap, so I didn’t really get much of a chance to show everybody what I can do, but there were about 12 or 13 bikes that went down in that race and three or four of them went down in the sighting lap and two went down in the warm-up lap, so it was pretty treacherous conditions, so I can’t really kick myself too much.”
RRR: Now coming into the last round Brandon, have you been doing any special training to get ready for the last round? Give us the full rundown of what you’ve been doing training-wise to prepare for this last round?
Brandon: “I’m actually in my cycling gear right now, ready to go cycling when I get off the line from you boys. So I’ve been cycling a little bit more than I normally do and been in the gym a little bit more and I’ve been eating obviously healthy and been trying to get lean for the last one and keep my body fat down, but just as normal, I’m not putting too much pressure on myself for this last one, but just like anyways, meaning I’m going to go there and try and win it.”
RRR: Well, I can’t wait to see you, best of luck for the weekend and we’ll see you out there at Sydney Motorsport Park in about a week and a half.
Brandon: “Thanks, boys, and thanks for having me!”
