Gary Johnson Aiming To Hit The Jackpot At Macau

Tuesday, November 16th, 2010

by Barry Russell

The Chinese gambling outpost of Macau is all about motorsport this week. The hotels and casinos are packed with racers and teams from all over the world preparing for the last great event of 2010, which begins when the roads are closed off early on Thursday morning for the first practice session.

Most of the racers arrived over the weekend and are slowly getting into the time zone. With the majority having flown in from Europe it’s more than a case of having a couple of early nights when you find yourself in a round-the-clock party town where they pump oxygen into the casinos to keep people awake and losing money.

I took the one-hour turbo-jet trip this evening (Tuesday) from Hong Kong to Macau to catch up with AIM Suzuki rider, Gary Johnson, over a quiet beer at his hotel. He has just about overcome jet lag and is clearly focused upon getting himself into the best possible shape for the race.

An articulate and engaging character, Johnson surprised everyone but himself at last year’s Macau GP by getting up amongst the factory bikes and heading for a comfortable third place until his Dunlop tyres delaminated in the cold temperature and let Ian Hutchinson through to take the last podium place. As a matter of record, only two men broke the previous lap record last year: race winner Stuart Easton on his factory spec Honda and Gary Johnson on his privately funded Suzuki. This year he comes to Macau on the back of a strong season in British Superbikes, having finished third in the hard fought Evo championship after three wins and ten podiums.

Since switching from motocross to circuit and road racing in 2003, Johnson has consistently gone faster than he should have done on decent second-string machinery, including a 129.6 mph average speed on a pit stop lap at the Isle of Man. He clearly loves racing motorcycles and regards himself as fortunate to be making a living from it. Despite having taken the vicious physical poundings you would expect of a bike racer he maintains his passion for the sport and the kind of unshakeable belief in his own ability that you only see in top level competitors. He has also done his homework on his rivals and the strengths and weaknesses of their machinery relative to his own.

“The roads are a great leveller when you are on inferior machinery,” he explained, “Whereas everyone will ride flat out on short circuits, which amplifies mechanical advantages, on the roads it comes down much more to when your red light comes on.” As he continued his analysis, it became clear that he knows where the “red lights” of the other Macau Grand Prix contenders start to flicker.

Looking ahead to the first practice session at 7:30am on Thursday, Johnson will be working on getting used to Dunlop tyres after a season on Pirellis in BSB and getting a feel for the condition of the Guia circuit after 12 months of being used by everyday traffic.

Unlike some of the other racers I saw at the hotel, the trappings and temptations of Macau are nothing more than ambient noise right now to Gary Johnson. He is focused only on the Grand Prix and expecting a lot of himself as he completes his race preparations.