Drumahoe student a biking champion

RISING star Jordan Brown has this year reclaimed the Irish Pit Bike Championship – just one year on from becoming the youngest person ever to claim the title.

Brown is studying Motor Vehicles at the North West Regional College in Limavady, something the young man from Drumahoe in Londonderry believes has given him something of an edge in the competitive world of motorcycle racing.

The Limavady student sensationally claimed the Irish Pit Bike Championship last year at just 16-years-of-age, making him the youngest person ever to have held the title. Indeed, this year’s victory would still have made him the youngest recipient of the prestigious accolade even if he had not triumphed last year as well.

He believes motorcycle racing enthusiasts often have a mistaken impression of pit bike racing and the quality of the vehicles. He added that whilst the bikes are small in size, they are often a high class machine and not always the cheap, poor quality Chinese imports they are often perceived to be.

He said: “This was my second year in it – I won it in two different classes, the 150s and the 240s. I won it last year and I was the youngest ever to have won it. If I hadn’t done that last year, I would still have been the youngest to have won it this year.

“I suppose I am one of the youngest in the competition, although there is another fellow who’s even younger than me – he is still a teenager as well.

“The 240s class, this is actually my first year in it. It was actually my Da who got the class up and running.

“I am at the ‘tech’ in Limavady and I study motor vehicles. I definitely think it helped me because if you know how the thing works then that would obviously help you with it. Maybe next year I will work at the bike myself.

“It’s actually a smaller version of a ‘super-moto’. It’s sometimes called mini-biking. There’s different classes of it and stuff like that. This would be a sort of a super-moto with higher suspensions and things like that.

People sometimes kind of look at them and think they are a Chinese made thing, not great, but they are not like that at all. I wish I could show more people the kind of thing it is, but maybe some people just aren’t interested in Pit Bikes – but they should be.

“This is the main thing I’ve done. I started in 2009 when a fellow got me in interested in it. He sold me a wee Chinese bike and using that, 2010 was my first real full year. I was probably about 12 or 13 when I started.

“I am in there racing against people of all ages. One of the boys used to race in the North West 200, Conor Totting I think his name is. I am in there with boys that have been at it a lot longer than me and have that experience.”

Jordan comes from a ‘champion’ family, his father Philip has been an All Ireland fishing champion and his brother is also a gold medalist in fishing. The family have a winning mentality and all that postivity has rubbed off on Jordan.

He said: “My Da is into his bikes and stuff but he never raced them. He knows enough about it though.”

Jordan Brown also praised those behind the scenes and attributed his success to both his father and mechanic Gareth Crichton.