WANNA BE A RACE TEAM TECHNICIAN?

What’s it really like to be a technician for a professional race team? Is it a life filled with glamourous travel and a whole lot of rubbing shoulders with famous riders and perky promo girls? Or are your weekends filled with changing tyres and cleaning dirty air filters; about working long hours on expensive bikes with thousands of prying race fans scrutinizing your spanner-swinging efforts?

Well, to find out, Yamaha Motor Australia recently gave some of their up-and-coming dealership-based technicians the chance to join Yamaha’s national motocross race teams – CDR Yamaha Monster Energy, Serco Yamaha, Yamalube Yamaha, and WBR Yamaha – in the trenches at a round of the ProMX and ASX championships to get a taste of life as a race team tech.

As CDR Yamaha’s Craig Dack was quick to point out, this Yamaha initiative was about much more than simply giving dealer techs some race team experience. “Any program that can strengthen the relationship between the dealer, customer, our race teams and our products is worthwhile and one we are happy to participate in,” Dack explained. “I have been involved with Yamaha for over 30 years, and this is a great idea that can only be of benefit to the lucky technicians who get the opportunity to join us and the other teams on race day.”

At both the Coolum round of the ProMX and Adelaide round of the ASX, technicians were elbow-deep in race team bikes, race team tactics, and race team discussions as they got a close look at the inner workings of a professional motocross team. And, as this video of the initiative in action at the Coolum round of the ProMX confirms, all of them came away from the weekend’s racing with not just a greater motorcycle knowledge, but also an experience that will benefit them back in their Yamaha dealership.