Motorcycling: Toseland's race with history

Keith Elliott predicts that a teenage Doncaster motorcyclist will soon have the eyes of the world on him

YOU have probably never heard of James Michael Toseland. Until last year, the people who are paying him a rumoured pounds 100,000 a year hadn't either. No surprise, really. When you are searching for the next world motorcycle champion, you probably wouldn't waste too much time watching a skinny 16-year-old kid from Doncaster who had not even passed his test.

Toseland has passed his motorcycle test now. He has passed his car test (though he failed first time for poor observation). He has also passed, time and time again, Europe's best 500cc and 600cc riders. Most have been riding at top level for years. For a junior rider to take on and beat experienced men like the reigning British 600cc champion, Paul Brown, is little short of sensational.

Motor Cycle News made Toseland their 1997 Young Rider of the Year. It was an honour they created specifically to acknowledge his remarkable success. Andy Ibbot, the weekly paper's race reporter and a talented rider himself, says: "I think you would have to go back past Barry Sheene, perhaps even to Mike Hailwood, to find the same special talent. He's still a little raw, but he is already very, very good."

Toseland has a two-year contract to ride for Castrol Honda's World Supersport team. He will be by far the youngest rider in the series, but many feel this will be just another stepping stone in his inevitable progress towards becoming world champion.

What would his old careers master make of all this? Toseland still recalls the look of amused scepticism when he said that he wanted to be a professional racer. Like a pop singer, riding a motorcycle at 150mph was not seen as a proper job. But this was a promising lad. Perhaps he could be dissuaded from this childish fantasy. So Toseland was asked: "What about weekend work?"

"I am only planning to work at weekends," he replied.

He went on to pass all nine of his GCSEs, including a memorable home economics exam. Straight after baking a cake, he was collected from school and headed straight to Brands Hatch for the first practice session in the European Supersport 600cc race.

Toseland was not being facetious when he revealed his chosen career. "I have said, from the age of eight, that I wanted to be a motorcycle rider. That's why I've had such support from my friends when they heard about the Castrol Honda deal. They knew what I had been through."

He discovered motorcycles at the tender age of seven. A year later, he was riding in junior trials competitions and his ability was soon apparent. though riding against boys two years older, he was area champion in the East Midlands, South-East and North-West.

Aged 12, he switched to motocross and finished sixth in his first season, picking up the best newcomer award. But he "retired" the following year to concentrate on road racing. "I had done trials and motocross to get used to the balance of a bike, but it was always road racing that I wanted to do."

In his first full season on a 125cc, Toseland started with a couple of fourths, then started finishing second. "One evening, I idly calculated that I had to win the last 16 races to win the championship. I never thought it was actually possible." But that is what he did.

The following year was a disaster. Though he had sponsorship, his Cagiva just was not good enough to challenge the Aprilias in the Superteen Championship. "The bike was seizing up and all my confidence from the year before had gone. It seemed I had come to a dead end. I was ready to retire, because the lad I had beaten the year before was third in the championship and I was 11th." Toseland felt he was washed up at 14.

Out of the blue, he got a phone call from leading rider Mick Corrigan. He had a bike that he wanted to race in the Honda CB500 Cup. Was Toseland interested in testing it? Do fish like water?

His first taste of the bike was at Mallory Park. "When I jumped on it felt good." It was not just a feeling. He was clocking 54-second laps on a standard 500cc. The lap record for a 600cc, which is considerably faster, was 50.4sec the pits team were astonished.

The first race was at Brands Hatch, but because he was just 15, Toseland was shunted into the newcomers' class. In practice, however, he was five seconds faster than anyone else. Corrigan asked the organisers to issue a national licence so his protege could ride in the national class. "No way," he was told. But Corrigan persisted. Just 20 minutes before, Corrigan got his way. He told me: "You're riding in the national class, and the prize-money goes up from pounds 300 to pounds 600." As the most I had won before was about pounds 100, that was quite a shock."

Toseland won by 5.5sec. He went on to win the series, finishing first in all his races but one, when he was second.

Then fortune smiled on him again. Corrigan broke his collar-bone and needed someone to test his new 600cc bike. "Don't take it over 8,000 revs," he sternly told Toseland. "You are just running it in," Corrigan manned a stopwatch, and became suspicious when he realised that Toseland was only a few seconds off the lap record. "You can't do that at 8,000 revs," Corrigan said accusingly. "It just kept getting quicker and quicker," says Toseland disarmingly.

Corrigan realised that he was watching a special talent. He let Toseland ride in a non-championship race at Cadwell Park, where the youngster was second. He followed this with a second at Snetterton, "but I had flu", says Toseland, explaining his poor performance.

Toseland, aged just 16, made his debut in the European Supersport 600cc series at Brands Hatch last year. In the first practice, he was 31st out of 36. Was the competition at last too fierce for the youngster? Former journalist Chris Herring, now working for Castrol Honda, takes up the story. "He couldn't put in a fast lap until he followed British champion Paul Brown. He needs competition to go fast."

From eighth on the grid, Toseland eventually finished third against Europe's best. He won five of the British rounds, and pundits agree that he would have won the series if he had taken part in the first three rounds. He also tied up the CB 500 class with three races to go.

Suddenly, he was the rider every team wanted. He had offers from every major British team and several world championship outfits. But Toseland is remarkably level-headed about it all, displaying a maturity way beyond his tender years. "I've bought some new clothes, and my mum has put up the price of my board," he says when asked how the Honda deal had affected him. He is even learning to play golf.

During the past two months, he has been to Australia, Italy and Malaysia, and the World Supersport series, which opens at Donington on 13 April, includes rounds in Austria, Brazil and San Marino. Exciting stuff for a teenager, whose previous foreign travel was limited to a Spanish holiday.

Early reports say that Toseland is going to surprise a few of the old faces. In one practice session, he was 0.2sec slower than Honda's European champion, Michael Paquay. A world champion? It is too early to say. But Herring recalls being called over by TV presenter and racing enthusiast Andy Kershaw who said excitedly "come and see this. You are watching history in the making." He was watching James Toseland.