Ant West signs for Speed Master CRT

Ant West should always be in the premier class. I rate him as the most unfortunate rider in the whole top line pack.

His talent was obvious on his debut in 250's a long time ago, where he was up front straight away on a second string 250. Since then he's had nothing but bad equipment under him and some poor management, IMO, not getting decent rides and opting for the bad ones. When he went as a guest ride to the supersport 600's on the Yamaha he won immediately with some entertaining riding and should have taken that option for that ride there and he would have won that series, but rather he went to ride that Kwaka in the GP which was a dog and only saw the end of anyone who rode them.

Good on him. He won't win anything of course on such machinery but good to see someone notices he can really ride.

Posted: 14/11/2011 at 22:38

The more I think about CRT, the more I am looking forwards to it next year. People like Westy being back can only be a good thing imo. As you say, he certainly has the class. And, although the CRT bikes are not gonna be anywhere near the prototypes this year, I for one am fairly confident in '13, they'll start putting in some surprising results. Particularly that Aprilia V4. (Providing "he" doesn't throw a paddy and want to keep all the best bits for him, and only him).

I would think Westy would be one of the people most favoured to spoil some results in '13 providing he can keep the seat.

Posted: 15/11/2011 at 12:00

Westie through and through.. Loose cannon but if he's managed well, he'll do well..

Posted: 15/11/2011 at 13:02

Lets get a campaign together to have Antony Gobert bought back to the GP paddock. That's a REAL loose cannon right there....

LOL

Posted: 15/11/2011 at 15:47

Thats a good idea Pagik. Im sure Gobert would be up for it too, beats snatching handbags for a living.

Only problem for Westy is he's a total bogan whose favourite reading material is car tune up magazines. But he is a damn fine rider, though I fear maybe his best years are behind him now.

A lot of people assume he cant ride because he's been around for years and done not much, but that is a pretty myopic view. That guy can ride and his relative achievements are large if you look and have a little ability to analyse beyond the results sheet.

He'll need some good technicians , seems to complain about that a bit. I read somewhere that apparently at MZ he had a tyre put on backwards and no one even noticed. Huh? No idea if thats true but...!

But he'll most certainly be able to handle all that power, it suits him down to the ground.

Posted: 15/11/2011 at 23:23

It's odd , we all seem to be in agreement ref CRT bikes but on some forums they moan about them being 5 seconds or so a lap slower than the quickest works bikes in the Valencia test, however in 1992 when Yamaha leased v4 engines to Harris and ROC to frame for privateers the gap from the fastest ( Doohan, Rainey or Schwantz ) to slowest was between 6 and 10 seconds a lap in the race, 10 seconds being Hockenheim and 6 being, if i remember rightly Jerez.
Yet because there were good battles all down the field it made for good TV it was great to watch, there was a hero called Corrado Catalano who was pushing top ten each race until a bad crash @ Hockenheim in 93 ended his racing career, at least in GP's anyway, he were class though.

Posted: 16/11/2011 at 16:15