VOL. 50 ISSUE 50 DECEMBER 17, 2013
(Above) For Beaubier, it's good
to be home playing with his dogs
Koda and Axel.
(Left) Beaubier was the man
to beat this season in Daytona
SportBike.
So at the age of 14, Beaubier left home to race overseas
against 23 kids selected from
around the world.
"That was like a crazy experience," Beaubier said looking
back on it. "It's pretty crazy now
that… I mean I own a house and
am at least trying to be responsible. I'm not all the way there yet,
but it's pretty crazy that I was over
in Europe at such a young age,
you know. That's six years ago.
That's pretty crazy."
So what was it like being an
American teenager racing and
living in Europe?
"It was amazing," he said. "We
spent most of our time in Spain and just how everyone lived their
life and like how compact it is and
with crazy drivers everywhere
- it's pretty cool. And the atmosphere at the track… it's just a
completely different atmosphere
than it is in any racing here, like
NASCAR, AMA, anything really. It
was awesome racing over there."
Beaubier showed potential
straight away, winning the race
at Sachsenring and grabbing
three podiums in what was only
his second year racing 125s and
his first year competing internationally. It was a feat that earned
him a coveted spot in the RedBull
P125
MotoGP Academy alongside the
2007 Rookie Cup Champion Johann Zarco. The Academy was
run by Alberto Puig – the former
racer who mentored Dani Pedrosa and Casey Stoner – and was
designed to prepare young riders
for MotoGP.
He also had support from
Casey Stoner himself, which in a
paddock that can be very jingoistic means a lot to a young rider far
from home.
"Casey [Stoner] kind of took us
[Beaubier and JD Beach] under
his wing over there," Beaubier
said. "He was a really good friend
to us. We'd go stay over with him
or I would stay with him in Switzerland in 2008 and 2009 when I
was over there pretty much on my
own. During the winter in 2008,
me and JD went to his place, his
farm in Australia. It was amazing.
He has so much land out there.
We rode and shot bows. It was a
lot of fun.
