Motocross Performance Magazine Canadian Motocross news leader
Words by Joey Crown
Photos by Ebrahim Adam
My trip to Singapore was definitely something I’ll never forget! The fourth running of the Singapore MX Beach Race was a newly FIM sanctioned racing event. It was also a part of the first-ever, three round MX National Championship series in Singapore held on Siloso Beach in Sentosa, Singapore.
My trainer, Pablo Toribio, moved to Singapore about three years ago from New York. In Singapore at the time there wasn’t any motocross racing. You would have to drive to Malaysia if you wanted to ride or race on a real track. So, my trainer came up with this idea of doing a race on the beach. With lots of hard work he was able to make this event happen.
On November 1st I packed up my clothes, riding gear, suspension, parts and even my bicycle and flew from Detroit to Newark, New Jersey, then had to take all my stuff on a train and then a shuttle to get to my hotel. The next morning, I made my way back to the Newark airport to fly to Singapore on an 18-hour, nonstop flight! On the flight I passed the time by sleeping, eating, watching movies, drinking lots of water and getting up to walk around. When I finally landed in Singapore, the airport seemed more like a mall than an airport. It was extremely clean, fancy and it had all sorts of stores and restaurants; it even had real trees and a pool! I was a bit worried about the language barrier, but the majority of everyone there spoke English. I went and retrieved my bags, and Pablo was there to take me back to his house. When I went to get into his car on what I thought was the passenger side, there was a steering wheel there. That took a bit to get used to. I kept going to get into the wrong side of the vehicle, and they also drive on the other side of the road from what we are used too.
There is an eleven-hour time difference in Singapore, so it took me about four days to shake off the jet lag. I was thankful that Pablo and his family allowed me to stay with them in their home. Being in a different country, it was nice to have all of the comfort of someone’s home. My first day there, which was a Sunday, we went to an empty lot in an industrial area to ride. I just rode a friend of Pablo’s KTM450, which was my first time ever riding a KTM450. It was a fun, sandy corner track. After we finished riding, we took Pablo’s bike back to the house, then went to pick up Alex Ray at the airport. The next day we went and picked up Alex’s Suzuki 450 that he was going to ride, as well as my KTM450. I put my suspension and bars on it and we went riding back at the industrial lot. After that we had one more trip back to the airport to pick up Pierce Foster, a racer from New York.
The next few days were spent with Pablo, Alex Ray, and Pierce Foster laying out the track on the beach and yelling at the equipment operators, who had never built anything like this before. I don’t think he spoke the best English, which may have been some of the problem. I just wanted to jump in the loader to do it myself, but I couldn’t. So, we would explain to him what to do and he would nod a few times and be like, “Okay, okay. Okay, okay, okay.” Then he would do the opposite of what we were saying. We even built jumps in the sand with our hands and feet for examples to show him. Eventually the sandy beach started looking like a track. It was a long couple of days at the beach. I never thought I would get tired of being at a beach so much.
Friday evening, we were finally able to test the track for a couple laps, then Saturday it was Day 1 of racing. In the first moto I got the holeshot and was leading for about half a lap until Alex Ray ran into the back of me and broke my rear brake cable. I went into the next turn not knowing I had no rear brakes and stuffed the front and fell. Alex got around me and won the race. After the race I was scrambling, trying to find a cable to fix it, but being in Singapore, parts are really hard to find. For whatever reason no one would let me borrow theirs off their bike? So, for the next race I had no rear brakes, but I still was going to send it. I didn’t get the start this time, but I was right behind Alex. I was feeling good but then I pushed it too hard into a corner and stuffed the front again. I got up and figured out how hard I could push without my rear brakes and was able to catch back up to Alex. I was all over him but couldn’t make the pass happen.
The second day of racing was a little better as Sunday morning a mechanic from a bike shop about an hour away brought a cable to the track and helped me get my brakes fixed. The first moto, I got a second-place start behind my trainer Pablo then quickly got around him and rode off with the win. Shortly after, a huge storm rolled in. They had to put the race on rain delay because of the lightning. One interesting fact I learned is that Singapore has one of the highest rates of lightning strikes in the world, which I was told as I was standing bare foot in the wet sand (laughs). After a two hour delay it cleared up and the racing started back up again. Unfortunately, because of the delay they had to shorten our race from ten laps to just five, which ended up hurting me. My second race I got a second-place start behind Alex. I was all over him, but I couldn’t find a place to pass him on the tight track so I was just trying to pressure him into a mistake. My plan was working well as he was all over the place. Alex had a couple close calls and almost cleaned my front wheel out once, but he was able to hold on to win and I was left with another second place and a bunch of sand in my mouth.
The whole race event ran smoothly. The track crew seemed to be excited about the event and worked hard to make it happen. One of the best parts of the race was the fans, especially seeing how excited the kids were about the race and about meeting us racers. As much fun as it was playing on my dirt bike in the sand, I was a little happy it was over so I could get out of that sand. It was everywhere!
After the race I still had another week to go in Singapore, so we spent it training, touring, and mountain biking. On one day when we went mountain biking, we had to take a 20-minute boat ride to get to an island where the trails were. When mountain biking in Singapore you have to keep an eye out for the wild life. There are monkeys, which can actually get pretty aggressive, snakes, and wild boar, which won’t think twice about plowing you over. I didn’t see any snakes, luckily, but I did see some monkeys in the trees and a couple of wild boar.
On November 17th at 12:40 am, it was time for me to fly home. The day before, Pablo and I went to the mall to walk around and grab some lunch. I’m not quite sure what it was I ate but it didn’t agree with my system and I started to feel sick to my stomach for the rest of the day. That made the 18-hour flight feel even longer than it already was, but all the movies helped me to survive my long journey home. I look forward to maybe having the opportunity to race there again in the future. I am thankful I was able to participate such a fun event.
