Grande Ryde

After his huge impressive Bank Holiday win at the British Superbike meeting at the Cadwell Park
circuit in Lincolnshire, youngster Kyle Ryde then flew off to the small Italian principality of San Marino and the Misano circuit.

Here Kyle was taking part in the final round
of the season of the Moto GP Redbull Rookies, a Championship that is part of
the Moto Grand Prix fixtures around the European circuits.

During the previous round of this Championship series at the Bruno circuit in the Czech republic, Ryde
possibly had his best result to date with a grid position of 10^th
and finishing 11^th in the second race, Kyle overall was starting to
feel he was now getting somewhere with his machine set-up, which he had been
struggling with all season.

After his recent successes in the British Championship, Kyle was on a high and this
reflected at this final meeting in Italy as Kyle commented on the Rookies
website  “I’ve at last got the bike working for me, the forks are stiffer with more rebound so
the bike turns in faster and I am really enjoying it, can’t wait for the race
tomorrow.”

After his best qualifying ever and a 3^rd place on the grid, giving him a front row position
along side German rider Alt and French rider Techer, Kyle was eager for the
race day to arrive.

The Rookies race was late on the Saturday
afternoon; however the daytime temperature was still high at 86°and track temperature was also
well up, so it was to be a strong battle against the heat!

As the red lights went out, Kyle went for the
hole-shot, similar to what he did at Cadwell Park meeting the previous weekend,
but he couldn’t get away from this pursuing pack of a round ten closely
battling adrenalin hyped up rider’s, including the top two Championship
contenders Italian Lorenzo Baldassarri and Australian Arthur Sissis.  Kyle didn’t give up easily and he actually
led for over half of the first lap, but was soon to be overtaken by Sissis with
Portuguese rider Lopes hot on his heels.
This was an intense battle amongst these youngsters and this went on for
several laps were Kyle held on to a strong 4^th place, it was then
that the race developed into two groups at the front, with the main four rider
group of the two German riders of Alt & Oettl and Baldassarri & Sissis
trying to get the better of each other, whilst Kyle was now in the second group
challenging for positions 5^th to 10^th and again places
were constantly changing through out the race.

As the race continued into the final laps, on lap 13 of the 17 lap race Sissis who
was in the pack of the front four riders, was forced wide as Baldassarri kept
to his racing line entering one of the corners, this then put Sissis back into
Kyle’s pursuing group, Sissis slotted in the pack just in front of Kyle in 6^th
position. Kyle managed to hang onto Sissis for a further three laps and at
certain points on the track he did overcome the former Championship
leader.  However, on the final lap Sissis
went all out to win the Championship and managed to fight his way back to an
incredible 4^th place, leaving Kyle fighting it out with French rider
Alan Techer and Czech rider Tomas Vavrous, crossing the line with just 0.09
seconds splitting them all. Kyle finished his final Moto GP Redbull Rookies
race of the season in a well-deserved 7^th place; Kyle’s best ever
result in this World Class series.

The two Germans Alt & Oettl were 1^st & 2^nd
respectively, whilst the Italian rider Baldassarri finished 3rd just in front
of Sissis, to take the overall Championship win. Youngster Kyle Ryde finished in
19^th place overall in the Championship, out of twenty-five riders
with a total of 43 points and has been informed by the Moto GP Redbull Rookie
Team that his place in next year’s series is secure.

Here Youngster Kyle Ryde leads the race, in pursuit are; number
61 Arthur Sissis, 75 Ivo Lopes, 47 Tomas Vavrous and behind him is the number 7
machine of Championship Winner Lorenzo Baldassarri.

Ryde’s next race outing is at his
home circuit of Donington Park this coming weekend, where the circuit plays
host to round ten of the British Superbikes. Kyle is only six points behind the
Championship Leader Rob Guiver in the 125cc British Championship, after
Donington he has two more rounds; Silverstone and then the final round at
Brands Hatch, where hopefully Ryde could tie up the overall Championship win
and possibly become the youngest ever British Motorcycle road racing
Champion!

Germany Motogp Red Bull Rookies Cup
Ryde is on a Mission

Teenage Motorcycle racer Kyle Ryde was out and about again this weekend in the Saxony Region of Germany. Youngster Ryde is racing in the 10th round of the Moto GP Redbull Rookies Cup at the Sachsenring circuit close to the city of Dresden.

This 2 ¼ mile circuit came onto the Grand Prix calendar in 1998 once the track was brought up to specification after the unification of East & West Germany and has featured on the GP calendar ever since. It is a challenging circuit as it is a very short; the shortest on the GP circuit and is also a very twisty circuit with many undulations. Also it is has another strange feature; this being that it has ten left hand corners and three right hand corners, most racing circuits usually have more right hand corners, so this again will catch a lot of the riders out, as it puts more pressure and wear onto the left side of the tyres, something the riders are not used to.

Friday free practise session came and young Kyle was out there to try and prove his worthiness to be competing at this level of racing. For once the weather was on his side, sunny! The last three rounds have all been in wet conditions, something that Kyle has hated since his spill at Thruxton in the British Championship. Kyle’s free practise session went well and was placed a creditable 10th place.
The Qualifying sessions came during Friday afternoon. Here the riders had set their stakes higher and during these two sessions Kyle came in 19th & 17th respectively, making him 17th on the grid for the first race on Saturday, only 1.7 seconds off of pole position, so some very close qualifying times by all of these youngsters

German Philipp Oettl was on pole position for the weekend, with Czech rider Thomas Vavrous 2nd and the third place rider is yet another German Florian Alt.

Saturdays race was run in excellent conditions for a change! so slick tyres were the order of the day.
Kyle was to get a good start and by the first lap was up into 14th position, but as the race progressed the leading group of eight riders broke away, so the race was split into a race of two halves and Kyle was in the second main group battling it out with the other younger riders of Lopes, Azmi, the other British rider James Flitcroft & American flat track ace Joe Roberts.

This second train of riders were battling close; as was the front pack of riders. Mistakes were to be made by both packs of riders, with riders constantly changing positions and two laps from the end of the race Flitcroft & Roberts who were both in front of Kyle crashed out ! However Roberts did manage to remount but Flitcroft failed to continue. Kyle tried hard to catch Azmi to eventually come home in a well-earned 12th position.

Pole man Philipp Oettl was race 1 winner, with Brad Binder 2nd & Scott Deroue 3rd. Championship Leader Arthur Sissis was 18th after having to start from the pit lane after his machine failed to start on the grid for the warm up lap.

Kyle’s race on Sunday was yet again a battle of the Titan’s. This battle saw Kyle and six other riders all fighting it out for for tenth position in this second race of the weekend. As the race came towards the final laps Kyle was in close quarters with Migno, Azmi Lopes and Enderlein, to finally end the race with just 0.007 seconds between 10th placed Italian rider Migno and himself taking the chequered flag in a strong 14th place.

Frenchman Alan Techer took the race win, with two Germans riders Florian Alt & Willi Albert coming home in 2nd and 3 respectively.

Kyle’s next race is at the Bruno circuit in the Czech Republic on Saturday August the 13th.

Tuscany Thunder

Young Motorcycle racer Kyle Ryde has been in action again on his fifth consecutive weekend.

Kyle & his Father Sean flew to the beautiful Tuscany circuit of Mugello near Florence on Thursday; this was for the 9^th round of the Moto GP Redbull Rookies Cup.

As of the previous two rounds, qualifying was a nightmare for youngster Ryde, again the rain fell during the qualifying session and he failed to achieve a good qualifying position. This was very disappointing for both Kyle and his Father Sean, as during the dry free practise sessions Kyle did put in some quick lap times, which had they have been during the qualifier, they would have put him a lot further up the pack rather than his lowly 23^rd place on the grid.

The heavy thunderstorms continued into the rookie’s race day on the Saturday and Kyle’s race was declared a wet race. However, the sun came out and a dry line appeared around the Tuscany circuit, so with 24 bikes all fitted with wet tyres, this was going to be a case of watching for tyre degradation and all about who could preserve their tyres the most!

The Red lights went out and as the pack charged up the first of many of the hills on this fast sweeping circuit, Kyle settled in for a hard race to try and make some head way into the field of riders in front of him.

The race broke into packs of five riders or more, all having their own race, Kyle was in one of these packs for most of the race eventually having a final tussle with Joe Roberts (USA) Azmi Hafiq (Malta) Max Enderlein (Gemany) and Kevin Argino (Italy) he did get the better of Enderlein & Argino, coming across the finishing line in a hard fought 18^th place just behind Roberts & Hafiq.

Race winner was yet again 18yr old Australian Arthur Sissis, followed on to the podium by Thomas Vavrous (CZ) and in 3^rd place Aaron Espana  (Spa)

Kyle’s weekend didn’t finish in Tuscany though! No sooner had the race finished, Kyle and his Father were on the plane back home to race on Sunday at the BSB Meeting at Snetterton in the British 125cc Championship.

Kyle arrived at the Snetterton circuit in the early hours of Sunday morning, so not much sleep before the early morning warm-up, where he had to do a maximum of four laps in order to be able to qualify to join the race from the rear of the grid, a position that Kyle is only becoming to familiar with!

After achieving the required four laps and being the seventh quickest, he felt comfortable for the afternoon race on the beautifully prepared bike of team owner Ryan Saxelby.

The race came, red lights out and the battle commenced, By lap one Kyle was up from 30^th place on the grid to 18^th and slowly but surely he picked off the other riders. By lap 3 of this twelve lap race he was up to 11^th place, well past half the field.  However, a group of five riders at the front were really setting the pace and had managed to break away from the pursuing pack of riders, not a scenario that Kyle wanted to happen, as they would be hard to catch.

By lap six Kyle was in sixth position and this is where he was to stay for the rest of the race, as by this time the leading five riders had drawn out a ten second difference on Kyle from the fifth placed man and fifteen seconds from the race leader.

So Kyle was to come home in a good 6^th place from the rear of the grid, with the race win going to another youngster Wayne Ryan, followed by Guiver and Watson.

Kyle is now 23^rd in the Moto GP Redbull Rookies and is still 2^nd in the British Championship on 75 points, twenty points behind the Championship leader Rob Guiver.  Kyle is leading the ACU Academy Cup from Luke Hedger; this is a separate Championship for the younger riders within this 125cc Championship.

Kyle’s next race will be in two weeks time, again with the Moto GP RedBull Rookies at the Sachsenring near Dresden in Germany.

Disastrous Debut Grand Prix for Ryde

Venue Silverstone UK, Rider Kyle Ryde, race; Moto GP RedBull Rookies, this was Kyle’s debut at his home Moto GP and it started with a nightmare of a qualifying day on Friday!

The first free practise session, saw Kyle eventually settle into a rhythm and the morning laps saw him in a strong 10^th position. However for the afternoon qualifying sessions, it was decided to change the suspension settings but this put Kyle well off the pace for the first qualifier.  It really unsettled Kyle so much, that during the session he returned to the pit lane and spoke to the mechanic about the bikes movements, at this point he was some 6 seconds off the leaders time! The suspension was re-set the for the second qualifying race 1 hour later, this was much better and he was over 4 seconds a lap quicker, nearly back up to the morning times. However with the poor times in the earlier session, Kyle was in a lowly position of 24^th for Saturdays first race of the weekend, not what the Team 77 anticipated after such good showings in the earlier rounds.

Saturdays race was declared a wet race and Kyle normally would enjoy the wet conditions. However still suffering from poor suspension settings, Kyle remained at the rear of the field all of the first race and by the time of the chequered he was actually a lap behind. Not the ideal position that some one of Kyle’s abilities is used to, but sometimes not everything works out right in these high profile races.

Things just seemed to go from bad to worse for poor Kyle, as Sundays race didn’t see any improvement what so ever, but to come from the back of the grid at this level of racing, was always going to be a tough call, especially if the bike isn’t working in your favour, so with a combination of poor weather conditions and the bike set-up, Kyle was again in last position in the race.

This was possibly the worst race event Kyle has ever experienced in his years of racing at club level & more recently National & International level.  However this is all the part of the learning curve of a future champion and he will pick himself up and learn from this experience.  So bring on the British Championship race at the British Superbike meeting at Knockhill in Scotland and watch this space.

Read all about Kyle’s first year on the Tour…download here (PDF 3.2mb)

As Fast as Lightening

Local young Motorcycle Racer Kyle Ryde has been racing at the Estoril circuit in Portugal this weekend with the Moto GP Red Bull Rookies squad.  This circuit was first used for a Motorcycle Grand Prix in the year 2000 and lying very close to the Atlantic coast this tricky circuit can often be made even more demanding by the strong and blustery winds that cross over it. It lies on a beautiful stretch of coastline on the outskirts of the capital city of Lisbon.

The weather played a huge part in this weekend’s qualifying sessions for Kyle and the first session was halted after just a few minutes when a thunderstorm hit the circuit and a lightning bolt struck the track just two metres from another young rider causing him to crash; then came the torrential rain and loss of power to the track communications. This caused the second qualifying session to be run over an hour later and still on a very wet track.

Again, as before in the first qualifying session, there were a number of fallers and this time Kyle was one of them; so with only having completed six laps of the circuit compared to the a lot of the other riders thirteen laps, he qualified at the rear of the grid for race day.

Saturday’s race saw Kyle get off to a good start and after scything his way through the pack on this damp circuit, he settled in a third bunch of riders all fighting it out for 9^th to 12^th positions.  There were only 3 fallers in the race by the tenth lap of this sixteen-lap race, as young Kyle continued this 4-way battle to the end of the race, thus completing his third only ever Moto GP RedBull Rookie race and achieving a credible 12^th position in the final lap, loosing out to American rider Joe Roberts by 0.1 sec.

Sunday’s race day saw much better race conditions with only a few damp patches, but relatively dry for the race.

As before, Kyle was at the rear of the grid again, but he got a good hole shot and settled in with the third bunch of riders yet again, but this time it was a eight bike train all within a few tenths of a second band of the race pace, when on the tenth lap, Italian rider Migno and German rider Albert took each other out right in front of Kyle!

Kyle managed to avoid hitting these two fallen riders and after some hard riding with the rest of the bunch, and after changing positions so many times during the race, Kyle came through the chequered flag in the same position as race one, this being 12^th position.

An early lead by race one winner South African Brad Binder, saw his hopes of a second race win diminish as his bike low sided him early in the race and gave the win to Australian rider Arthur Sissis.

Kyle is now equal eleventh place overall in the Rookie Championships with twenty-one points.

Photograph is at Estoril Portugal courtesy of Moto GP Red Bull Rookies

Flying back Sunday night from Estoril, Kyle travelled overnight North to Oulton Park for his second British Championship round on the Bank holiday Monday BSB event, this is following on the back of last weekends disappointing meeting at Brands Hatch.  That event saw Kyle with a DNF after setting a blistering pace all weekend, then with the bike suffering a mechanical failure and throwing him off! All this happened in the in the final few laps of the race after establishing a six second lead.

Oulton Park also saw Kyle start from the rear of the grid yet again! As due to Kyle being in Portugal over the weekend, he missed out on the qualifying races at the Oulton Park meeting, but he can race, providing he completes five compulsory laps, this then allows him to start the race from the rear of the grid.   Not only did Kyle do the compulsory five laps, but also he was the fastest in warm up.

The afternoon race approached and Kyle had a huge hill to climb to move through thirty two other riders from the rear of the grid to the front runners, but with a steady head on his shoulders he picked his way through the pack and by the end of lap one he was already in mid pack!  Kyle kept his cool through a race marred with crashes and mechanical failures and he finally caught the front pack of three riders. Luke Hedger, the winner from Brands Hatch, suddenly became another faller and then this opened up a two-way battle for Kyle with the Australian rider Matt Davies. This battle went on up to the final two laps of the race, then as they went into Lodge corner it was all about who could get the drive out of this final corner and Kyle managed to grab the lead to take the chequered flag for a second place position, beating Davies by just 0.066 of a second, the race winner was Rob Guiver.

Kyle also won the David Jeffries ACU Academy Award for the first youngest rider across the wining line at the Oulton Park meeting.

Kyle’s next British Championship race is in 2 weeks time at Croft in the North East, whilst his next Moto Gp Red Bull Rookie race is at the British Grand Prix in June.

Regards John Holmes

Season opens for Ryde

Jacksdale village young motorcycle racer Kyle Ryde, opened this seasons racing with some convincing wins at the recent North Gloucester Club meeting at Brands Hatch.

He was taking in some valuable track time with regards to bike set-up, track knowledge and team bonding with his new team Manager Ryan Saxelby, who he will be racing for in the British 125cc Championship this year.  After wining all of the 125cc races at the Kent circuit meeting, Kyle wanted more track time, so they also entered him in the 450cc class.   Starting from the rear of the grid and after some pretty smart moves during the race, Kyle came through to win this class also, setting both new lap records for the 125 & 450cc classes on the Indy circuit at Brands Hatch.

After coming home from Kent with a bagful of race wins, the team prepared for his next outing, which is the beginning of Kyle’s International career, with the Moto GP Red Bull Rookies.

This first race meeting for young Kyle was the Spanish Grand Prix in Jerez, which commenced on Friday April 1^st until Sunday the 3^rd. In this series are 25 of the world’s best teenage racers representing 14 countries from as far apart as Malaysia, Australia and the USA and also most of Europe, from Finland to Italy, from the Czech Republic to Portugal, as they face off in the greatest opportunity for their future racing careers.
This year sees the number of Rookies races increased to fourteen so the young riders get more occasions to develop their skills and prove themselves in front of the Grand Prix fans, teams and worldwide media.  These races are at eight of the Moto GPs in Europe at: Jerez, Estoril, Silverstone, Assen, Mugello, Sachsenring, Brno and Misano, all featuring two of these Rookies races with events both on the GP qualifying day and on the race day itself, so plenty of action for young Kyle to be involved in.

Qualifying day at the Spanish round in Jerez was a fine dry day and after some good sighting laps, Kyle managed to put together a good consistent time and achieved a solid 9^th place on the grid for his first ever Moto GP Red Bull Rookies race, which was taking place the following day, Kyle was also the 2^nd quickest of the fourteen new rookies for this season.

The first race day came and once the Moto GP stars had done their qualifying race, all the rookies moved onto the grid in preparation for their very first race of the season. A warm pleasant day with a temperature of 75f Kyle was on the third row of the grid, so as the flag marshal walked off the grid and the lights turned to red, the pack headed up the hill towards the first right-hander.  After a hectic start the race developed into groups of riders and for most of his race Kyle was in a group battle of five riders jostling for 8^th position, eventually after much swapping and changing of paintwork!  Kyle finished in a very respectable 13^th place, an excellent result for his first ever International race.

Sundays race day was surely going to be different, this was down to a sudden change in the weather, the previous days warm and blue skies had all but disappeared and it was now a lot cooler and raining.

Kyle is very much used to these types of conditions, it’s a case of having to be racing in the UK’s climate.  So once again the pack of young-guns headed up the hill and started on the second of the 16 lap races.  Kyle settled into a good rhythm and it showed, as quite a few of the early front runners started to fall in the wet & slippery conditions, Kyle battled on using his skills honed on the circuits back in the UK and he held this momentum right up to the chequered flag, finishing in an even more respectable 6^th place!  Kyle after these first two rounds in Spain is lying in 7^th place overall in the Championship.

I’m sure that ‘Team Kyle Ryde’ are finally starting to make a mark on the racing scene, so start to take note of this13 yr old youngster from Jacksdale as I’m sure that you are going to be hearing lots more about him in the coming months ahead.

Kyle’s next meeting is back at Brands Hatch at Easter, this is at the British Superbike race meeting being held over the Bank Holiday, he will be competing in the British 125cc Championship, on last years wining bike of team owner Ryan Saxelby, then the following weekend, he is back out on his Moto GP Red Bull Rookies Bike at the Portuguese Grand Prix at the Estoril circuit.

Saturday March the 5th was a fund raising night for Jacksdale’s ‘Teen’ Motorcycle racing star ‘Kyle Ryde’.
This event took place in Kyle’s home village at the local ‘Dale Club’ and was well supported by the local community and also friends and relatives from afar.  As well as many locals showing there support, various other people from the motorcycle racing fraternity were in attendance, including another local racer ‘Richard Cooper,’ who this season, is riding the Hawk Buildbase BMW in the British Superstock series.

The event was to help raise funds for Kyle & his family in order to be able to compete at both International & National level of Motorcycle racing. This youngster was selected for the MotoGP Red Bull Rookies cup 2011 last September and he will also be mounting a challenge on the British 125cc Championship at the British Superbike events, riding last years wining bike of Team Manager Ryan Saxelby.

The evening’s event was a combination of horse racing, raffles, tombola and an auction of lots of memorabilia from Motorcycle racing Champions to Derby County & Nottingham Forest tickets and photographs.
The list of winners is endless; so a good night was had by all that attended and the event went on late into the night! By the time all the takings were accounted for, a whopping £4,020.00 had been raised for Kyle’s worthy cause.
Kyle’s parents Sean & Janine were overwhelmed with the support given to their son. They would like to express their gratitude to everybody for making it such a worthwhile event and to all the sponsors and celebrities that gave their precious time and artefacts for the auction.

No sooner had the youngster got over his ‘Fund Raiser’ evening, he was then flying out to the Estoril circuit in Portugal for 4 days of testing with the MotoGP Red Bull Rookie Squad.  This is a fairly new circuit, only a few years old and one that Kyle had never seen before only on the TV when he was watching the World Superbikes.

The testing started on the Friday morning with only 35 minutes of actual track time. This was due to the heavy bursts of rain and so the session was called off for the day, much to Kyle’s disappointment.

Saturday saw a break in the cloud and was a fairly dry day, so managing to get a lot more track time in today; Kyle by the end of the day’s sessions, was 11th overall in practise and the 2nd fastest newcomer, not a bad result out of 25 riders, half of which have been riding these machines for 2 to 3 years.

Sunday was a day of leisure for Kyle & his father Sean;
Then the third and final day of testing at Estoril for all the Red Bull MotoGP Rookies Cup concluded with a damp and cool Monday.  The fastest times remained from Saturday’s session and while there were a number of fallers in the slippery conditions, there were no injuries but there were no fast times to be had in theses difficult conditions. So after another hard day of testing, Kyle slipped slightly down the leader board to 20th position on the day; however, with a combined tally of the 3 days of practise, he finished in 16th place overall.

Kyle is now looking forward to his first 2 races of the 2011 Rookies Cup season, which are on both the Saturday and Sunday of the Spanish Grand Prix in Jerez on April 2nd and 3rd. You can watch kyles race live on your PC or laptop! We will inform you in advance when its on!

Thanks all

written by john Holmes

Young Jacksdale Motorcycle racer ‘Kyle Ryde’ is still in need of some urgent support for the 2011 season.

 This year is going to be a busy year for the 13 yr old youngster, with his selection into the Moto GP Red bull Rookies squad and also the British 125cc Championship to contest. For this season he will be on board last years championship wining bike of top tuner Ryan Saxelby.

His parents Sean & Janine have been working relentlessly to raise sufficient funds in order to enable Kyle to have the best available chance of both impressing the world stage at Grand Prix racing and also at home with the British Championship.

Events have been held locally by his parents and family and this is much appreciated by Kyle, Team 77 and of course his parents, However, in order to comfortably be able to succeed in both of these tasks, more funding is required by the team.

So if you are able in any way to help financially with support for this local young up & coming star, then please look at contacting Sean & Janine, as they have to find approx £30,000 to fund this years racing season!!  They have managed to secure nearly half of the required money, but they are desperately seeking to find a local substantial sponsor for the rest of their needs and they are constantly thinking of new ways to raise the money to keep Kyle on a bike!!

As well as looking for a local business sponsor and also for the avid race fans who want to give something back to the sport, Kyle Ryde Racing have ‘Team 77’.  For £77 a year this is what you get for your money: updates via email, a free calendar (up until the middle Feb) your name will appear on the Team 77 website and also on the race transporter and sponsor board which will be displayed at all British Superbike meetings around the UK.

What are you waiting for? Pick up that phone now and call on Sean 07528623319 or Janine on 07811145579

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