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The Curious Case of Christian Iddon

Christian Iddon’s rise through the racing ranks has been fast. It has taken him just four years to go from being a Supermoto World Championship contender to a factory-backed MCE British Superbike seat via World Supersport and World Superbike rides.

Now he has a GSX-R1000 in the Halsall stable, no-nonsense northerner Jack Valentine as a team boss and BSB race winner Josh Waters on the opposite side of the garage.

Halsall have taken over where TAS Racing left off with the Suzuki factory, and Iddon comes into the team after a year developing the WSBK Alstare Bimota BB3 – a project that has now been shelved due to homologation problems with the BB3. Now the part-time builder finds himself in the UK and on a bike some say is past its best. Iddon thinks otherwise.

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“Obviously, Josh Brookes a couple of years ago was fighting for the championship on it, Josh Waters won races on it and came strong towards the end of the year in all conditions and so did Hopper, so I certainly think it is there. The last two years I have ridden development bikes so that’s one thing I definitely cannot moan about this year; it’s quite the opposite, if anything, so at least we can hit the ground running. I also think the way BSB is, no matter which bike is the best or worst, they are much closer than in a lot of other championships,” he said, speaking to Bikesport News.

“Having Jack involved is great with the connection with Suzuki. When I first started talking to him, they were still going to continue with Kawasaki then one day he phoned and said there was the Suzuki thing. There are better/worse bikes but I don’t think it makes a great deal of difference when it comes to BSB. I think certain tracks will suit us and certain tracks won’t, but that’s the way it is with every bike on the grid. Jack has a lot of connections and obviously knows how to run a tight ship so I’m looking forward to it.”

It will be Iddon’s first full season in BSB. The Derbyshire man started in the premier class during 2010 – his first year of non-dirt competition – with Robin Croft’s SMT team but it didn’t go well and he is keen to gloss over it. Then came two years with the TAG Triumph team in British Supersport, where Iddon was a title contender – not bad for year three.

“This will be my first proper season. Obviously I spent two years in British Supersport, which was really good. I had what I needed with the TAG boys. They provided everything I needed as a new rider. They had Billy McConnell and Paul Young there to do the main job and I was there as an add-on. It was a good way to do it; it meant I could just learn the trade. In my second year I was angry at myself not to have won the championship. I felt I could have/should have/would have. At the start of the year, I had a few crashes and we had a couple of mechanical problems. Basically, all that put us out of the title race at the end of the year – we out scored everyone by just about double.

“Then I got the opportunity to ride World Supersport with an official team, which I had to grab with both hands; it was just a development bike, which, at the time, was massively under powered. But at the end of the year – the last five races – I was never out of the top four, but I never finished. The bike broke down three times in the last four races. Things were definitely progressing and I was hoping to stay on that for the year after when it was going to be the bike that Cluzel rode, which was an absolute weapon. It was probably the best chassis I had ever ridden.

“Then the Alstare thing came about. It was amazing to be involved with a team like that and get into World Superbike but it was another year to develop a bike. That was going in the same direction as what we had done on the MV. We could only go against what we were racing in, so if you put us up against the results of the other Evo guys, we started off a bit on the back foot. From Aragon, we were getting podiums just about every round in the Evo and battling for the wins, beating the BMWs, Kawasakis and Ducatis.

“I think two years on the world stage has put me in a good position as a rider, as has two years battling and developing bikes that aren’t ready or need development; it has definitely brought me on as a rider. I’m coming back much stronger which I would say anyway, just because I am still reasonably fresh. This will be my fifth full season so I still have quite a lot to learn.”

Iddon made a BSB wildcard appearance at Assen last season, stuck it on pole in damp conditions, and gave everyone something to think about. He isn’t a rain master (see box) but his dirt background and the Suzuki being a little less stiff and able to find grip in damp conditions will help no end in this inclement British climate.

Testing begins for Iddon at Cartagena in early March, where he will be up against most of the rest of the BSB, grid including Waters, who returns for a third season in BSB. Iddon believes the pair will work well together as Waters is clearly no mug.
“I think you might as well take as much information as you can from wherever you can get it from. Some people would say you have to do it on your own but I think you are making a rod for your back – if you can get the information, you might as well get it.

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“At the end of the day he has spent two years on a Suzuki. He has got some knowledge there and I am not against helping each other out. I think you need to get each other to the front of the pack and from then on you can battle it out and have whatever arguments you want to have. Obviously, what he does in the wet is phenomenal and what he does in the dry is pretty handy too.

“He can certainly ride and he is a very consistent rider from what he did in Suzuka. There are some extremely strong points to what his riding is and I think he is quite strong headed in that he can keep pounding out the same lap time, perhaps not necessarily an out-and-out quickest lap time but he can keep going at what he goes at, which is a massive plus.”

Iddon is also close mates with Eugene Laverty, who rode the Voltcom Suzuki in World Superbikes last year, so some note-taking has already taken place. “Eugene is as daft as a brush but he is one of the most analytical riders I have ever met. He can pick anything up. I have never met anyone who can be so different – he is the most stupid person in the world in a funny way and at the same time he is so clever! I will be picking his brains but he has a busy schedule this year so I will try not to bug him too much but he is one of those riders that can really analyse the bike and its potential, how to get the most out of it and what needs doing to improve that.”

He’s good in the rain…

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Iddon’s dirt background helps him immensely with riding in the wet but he believes it’s more in your head than anything else.

“I’m not too fussed about the rain. I think the thing with rain riding isn’t that some people are better at it but you have to just crack on and accept it is there. I think some people dread it and don’t like it and that is where you are at a disadvantage. I think, crack on, that’s the way the conditions are, and it’s the same for everyone. You are already halfway ahead if somebody else’s mindset is: ‘Oh no, it’s raining; I’m going to get wet!’ To be honest, I just enjoy riding. I don’t go into a round hoping for the weather. It is what it is. It’s the same for everyone else and we go out there together.”

Paul Iddon: handy dad or nightmare motocross dad?

Christian’s dad, Paul, was a GP and superbike rider during the 1970s and 1980s. Is he one of those useful ex-racer dads, or a real motocross father?

“To be honest, he is brilliant; I wouldn’t tell him he is famous as that would go straight to his head. My dad has always worked with me, all the way through supermoto. The world championship was a different story but at the British Supermoto championship he was my mechanic and everything as it is just a small set up. He was with me all the way through notocross then when we went to British Supersport he was my mechanic as well because that made the job cheaper for me.

“The past two years he has been my guide to go along and help. He doesn’t have a great deal of input to be honest because he realises it is beyond the era he was in. We don’t talk about the racing much. He will ask me certain things but won’t get involved in set up or things like that. He knows how to play me, he knows when to give me a gee-up and when not to say anything. He has been with me for so long that we have a pretty good understanding of each other.

“He never tells me how to ride or what settings I need. If I ask him a question, he will help me out as much as he can. He is there more to ensure my safety, I guess, in that I am happy and in the best frame of mind that I can be. He watches over the mechanics and he will point out something if missed off but he will never get involved. He is someone there to ensure my safety and to be by my side.”

Supermoto to circuits

As a dirt monkey, Iddon was almost peerless in the UK, taking nine British Supermoto titles before moving on to the world stage and winning a lot of races, but circuits started to beckon…

“Road racing was always the end goal. I was motocrossing from a young age. I won the British title but I was never going to be a world champion. My dad had always asked me about road racing, but I was never really interested as off-road sports were my passion.

“My dad is of the mindset that if you don’t have the will to do it then it isn’t going to work out, so he never pushed me. Then I stopped motocross and started in supermoto. We didn’t have the money for road racing and supermoto was coming through. I got reasonably good pretty quickly.

“It was nice to be getting paid to ride around in circles, and I was there chasing the world championship so I stuck at it. I won nine British championships and was getting a bit bored: one, busting a ball to win these titles no-one actually cares about; two, the expectation that I had to win everything. If you didn’t win, there was something really wrong with you and if you did win, there was never any celebration because that’s what happened, it was expected. It got to the point where if we were going to do it, we had to do it now.”

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