There are those still living that adventure.
Anthony West is one of them. The two-time Grand Prix winner's exploits just in 2017 are the stuff of novels, and remember that not all novels have a happy ending ...
West ended 2016 living out of a suitcase, having filled his fifth passport and having raced in his eighth international racing series. His Superbike World championship ride gone, West put together a 2017 season of racing the Supersport World Championship and the Asia Road Racing Championship. While the ARRC ride was guaranteed, the Supersport ride was self-funded, and depended on West putting together enough money - from sponsors and results - to make it from round to round.
In recent years, this hasn't been impossible from a privateer's point of view, thanks to the stability of the Yamaha YZF-R6 platform. The dominant middleweight, when Yamaha felt like trashing the competition in Supersport, it pulled the R6s out and were immediately competitive. Sam Lowes, Chaz Davies and Cal Crutchlow all have won the Supersport title on the R6 in the past decade. Last year, when Kallio Racing decided to enter Niki Tuuli for a few wild card rounds, they put together a privateer R6, and Tuuli scored three straight second places. The R6 was good, well-known, and made it possible for a privateer to enter the second-highest class in the WSBK arena and have a shot at a podium.
West knew this well. He entered the 2016 Phillip Island Supersport race in 2016 on a privateer R6 and put it on the box. But 2017 was going to be more difficult. Yamaha had introduced a new and upgraded R6 for 2017, and had put together a factory-backed Supersport team to race it. The going had just gotten that much tougher for the privateer. The "old" R6 would still be competitive at first, as it was so well-understood and refined. But with each passing round, the new R6 and the new factory team would be getting better, more refined, faster. West had to strike early in the season to make a statement that his team was worth sponsoring.
The life of the privateer means a lot of looking for money. West's Twitter feed has a picture of the bike, with portions of the fairing sectioned off with price tags on them. It's remarkable how little money it took to occupy a big section of the bike. The team showed up at Phillip Island and immediately blew up two engines. Only a loaner - and slow - engine from a National-level competitor got West into qualifying, where he started from 22nd, the eighth row.
Long story short - lots of chaos and drama among the front runners, a steady, quick ride by West and the Australian was fourth heading into the final lap. West got passed by two riders, two riders crashed out, another slowed and he wound up, impossibly, on the podium again.
Aragon was a disaster. The bike threw a rod through the cases and burst into flames. West didn't run away from the flaming machine, but stood over it, frantically waving over the marshals with the fire extinguishers. You can always tell the racer who's also the machine's owner ...
More frantic negotiating landed a Dutch team to take a bike with them to their headquarters and rebuild it from the frame up while West headed for Thailand to race the ARRC round. The Asia series pays well, and West plows that money back into the Supersport program. And Yamaha has kicked in a couple of engines, which went straight to an engine builder in the U.K. for race prep.
West has money for the upcoming races at Assen and Imola. Assen is the site of his two greatest accomplishments - wins in the 250cc and Moto2 Grand Prix races. He's tenth in the Supersport championship, and with the front-runners all suffering various problems, he figures that he's still in the fight.
"Still need to find the money to finish the other 7 rounds. I can still win this championship and I'm going keep trying to win it," West posted on his Instagram page.
Lots of people tattoo inspirational slogans onto their bodies. None may be more apt than the tattoo on West's arm, "Give Up Never Won A Race ..."
https://www.gofundme.com/ant-west-2017-race-season
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