A case study of Kyle's Supermini Journey, being coached to his first national win!
I love sharing success stories, this is one of my favorites and it has never really been told. Everyone has their stories and adventures, this is Kyles!
I guarantee if you are on the journey to becoming the best this is one story you will be interested to read!
I first met Kyle and the Mcnicol clan at the end of the 2014 season. They came to train with me in Florida via Recommendation from Alexander Brown, another flying Scotsman at that time!
After spending a few days working with Kyle I could see how coachable and determined he was!
We was talking in the barn whilst repairing bikes when I asked something no coach had ever asked him. "where are you wanting to go with your racing? How far do you want to take it?"
I think the question took Kyle's dad by surprise at the time and like many people we keep our true ambitions hidden and many just take the approach of seeing where it will take them.
I went on to explain my belief of talent being built not born and they can take things as far as they were prepared to go with the right work and dedication.
It is important to have a long range goal, a dream to chase and to create a strong why. From there you have to lose yourself in the process and have that vision to hold on to.
We continued training for the rest of their stay in the sunshine state. Unfortunately Kyle suffered a small wrist fracture that he tried to hide from us so he could keep training! That's the kind of mindset I witnessed. He wanted to push through the pain to make the most of riding all the while hiding it from us! We obviously picked up on it and that was where our story really begins!
Frustration!
I returned back to the UK after winter training had concluded and went to watch one of the mx national races at Culham. Kyle was racing and in race two he placed 21st, I went to find him in the pits and he wasn't happy! Neither was his dad!
Overall everyone was frustrated because they knew Kyle's potential was much higher. We had a chat and they explained results were up and down, at the British youth nationals Kyle had been placing 29th overall yet there were occasions when he could place top 10 in a moto!
I was confident what needed to be done and we set out a plan going forward.
Restrictions!
Kyle was based in Scotland and was still at school. In the UK I was based further south east and adding to this was Kyle's parents work schedule, so training on a regular basis wasn't an option for our plan.
We had to improvise and made the most of every opportunity we could to create intensive boot camps where we would maximise the time.
The work begins
Our first camp involved travelling briefly to Holland during the summer holidays of 2015, We had plenty of good tracks and other great riders to train with including one of my other protégés Christopher Mills who at the time was 2nd in the European championships. Creating an environment with racers who all want to be the best can be very productive!
We started to work on technique along with consistency, average lap times in a moto become more important to us than setting one fast lap.
Overall it was a good trip and progress was made. We did some more weekends at public tracks that year and Kyle entered 2016 as a top 10 guy at the races, but things were about to get a lot more serious!
Easter 2016 and we did another Dutch boot camp, we found a great quarry where we could really focus on the technique training and put in some Serious hours. Kyle had stepped up the pace quite considerably and as riders increase speed it's good to stay on top of positioning and technique. Away from the track we started to do more theory based work also bringing in understanding to what he was learning on the bike, race craft, mind skills all started to be thrown into the mix.
Summer!
The plans advanced and we were able to create a base in Holland for summer 2016 with the help of Chris Mills. Kyle's parents packed up the camper with literally everything Kyle had, spare bikes, parts, cycle bike and drove it to Holland where it would stay for the duration as Kyle's base. The family flew home and I became trainer, mechanic and step dad for the next 9-10weeks. We had a great workshop and base at the house near to the German border with both sand and hard pack tracks close by.
Other riders joined us on and off during this time which was great for Kyle.
We was able to gauge speed against the fastest 85 and 125 riders in the world and because the tracks are open sessions we could push for full European style motos.
Kyle was having to get himself up early every morning, he had to become self sufficient and self motivated! Cycling, training, stretching, eating right, sleeping right, washing bikes, even coming shopping with me for the right foods was all part of the process away from what we was doing at the track!
How many 14-15 year olds would stay away from their family and start to live like a professional?
I can't remember ever having to ask him to do something twice and there was never any back chat, he just did what was needed and more without question!
4 weeks in and we needed to return to the Uk for a British youth nationals race in Scotland. Kyle, Christopher and I were all chatting about Kyle's potential, Christopher was now on the 125 and had been riding a lot with Kyle and knew from personal experience how fast he was becoming. Christopher said to Kyle "You know you could win this weekend right"
I agreed but I don't think Kyle's belief system had quite caught up with how much he had progressed! He didn't believe it so we had to do some work on that.
How do you build belief?
By stacking enough evidence that you are who you say you are and have done everything you need to do.
You can't jump beyond what you believe you are capable of. So what did we do?
We focused on the process of the race one section at a time.
Qualifying didn't go well with a 17th! sometimes things like this happen, all you can do is rebound!
I asked Kyle the question "can we get a holeshot" he knew he was atleast capable of getting a holeshot! And he did! He led the race for just under a lap before a small mistake dropping to third and ending up 6th. From 17th gate pick thats pretty awesome!
Kyle's belief system changed in that moment. It became a possibility in his mind that he could win and he now knew exactly what the pace was and how it felt to lead!
We returned to Holland to continue on with the program.
The next thing we had to look at was bike setup, I was convinced Kyle could go faster and become smoother but he was fighting the bike. This was always an awkward situation because as a coach I'm looking to every little thing that either helps or hinders a rider and something was hindering him.
We had some spare bits from Christopher's European 85cc left over and one day I decided to test one part in particular.
The lap times dropped by 6 seconds at lommal as the track was getting its roughest, not only that he looked more in control and consistent. The only issue was then risking upsetting one of his long term sponsors if we were to run this moving forward!
If you haven't guessed it was a different shock that we tested and we never did end up running that shock at the races, even though Chris kindly would have let us have it. We chose to try and work with Kyle's guy to improve his shock. This could be a whole other story so we won't go down that road. I just wanted to demonstrate that gains can be made from all sorts of areas and suspension is one of the biggest areas for motocross outside of training (I am biased to that obviously)
Come the end of the camp Kyle returned home a changed young man, he was always determined and dedicated but his parents noted many differences, one of which Kyle's dad had mixed feelings about " he gets himself up now and goes for his morning ride without me", "he washes his own bike!".
The rest of that year was bitter sweet because we came across a new problem. Kyle was now able to lead races but how do we keep the bikes running!
Hawkstone Park, Mx nationals and Kyle led the whole damn race to everyone else's surprise (not mine), only to have the bike break down on the last lap. The rest of the weekend was up and down with a 4th place being his best moto finish! But he knew he could do it!
Kyle's dad and grandad now had a whole new load of decisions to make, seeing what Kyle had proved he could do, they needed to find a way to have the machinery he needed to run at the top consistently!
2017 and Kyle's family secured a deal with Manchester mc, running EHR Husky's, he had everything he needed machine wise to make it happen including a mechanic at the races to make sure everything ran as it should and with all the bike issues from 2016 the family wanted to give Kyle the best chance possible.
Kyle came out swinging and at the first round of the mx nationals at Preston docks he was fastest qualifier taking the first moto win and the overall for the weekend!
That was one mini goal done and proof for the belief bank.
That evening Kyle and I packed everything up again and set off for another training adventure and carry on with the original mission to build a pro racer!
Conclusion
Kyle's story proves that you can go from frustration in whatever position you start at and work hard to change the outcome. It takes a huge effort and one from many members of a team/family. I had my part to play in orchestrating and taking on the challenge but many others all played their part.
It takes a good reliable bike setup, the best people who believe in you, the best environment and facilities, working to a budget. Working with restrictions and making it happen in spite of that.
It requires input and feedback from the right people and people who can see further along the road than you may be able to see. It requires a young athlete that is coachable and open to all the information, training drills, extra work beyond the track but most of all has that burning desire to be the BEST they can be and can believe it can happen!
Could we have made it happen faster?
Under these circumstances no, but with the training being less broken up yes I fully beileve the process could have been acheived in less time.
The full testimonial from my work with the McNicols can be found here
I hope you enjoyed that story, I certainly enjoyed being a part of that journey and I want to thank everyone that was involved including the Mills Family for helping with a base in Holland!
Where do you want to take your racing career? and how will you get there?
Thanks for reading
Gary
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