Portugal’s most successful motocrosser, Rui Goncalves, is in the midst of a demanding training programme back in his native country and aiming to be 100% ready when an opportunity arises to contest the 2014 MXGP FIM Motocross World Championship. The 2009? MX2 runner-up is still looking for a Grand Prix saddle to try and bounce back from an injury-riddled season and insists he still has plenty of speed and experience to lend a team intending to contest the eighteen round ’14 campaign starting in Qatar on March 1st. Goncalves is the last renowned racer and former GP winner to confirm a ride for 2014 and insists the routes taken by the likes of MXGP peers Joel Roelants and David Philippaerts, in forming their own teams with support from Honda Motor Europe and Yamaha Motor Europe respectively, is not an option that is open to him.
“I saw what David has managed to get going but I think there is more industry to get behind him in Italy so he could make that happen,” he commented. “I don’t believe I’m in a position like that.”
“I’ve been racing in Grands Prix since 2002 so that is a lot of years of testing, riding factory bikes, prototypes and development projects,” he added. “2013 was a tough year with five injuries and two surgeries but I really want to turn that around and I won’t give up.”
With Portugal currently a force in Rally and ex-MX riders enjoying purple patches in Enduro the off-road racing world would not appear to be closed to Goncalves but ‘99’ is not entertaining notions of a switch away from motocross just yet. “Not now,” he asserts. “I mean, I don’t want to close the door [to a switch of disciplines] but I am only 28 and my priority is motocross. I still feel like I have a lot of energy for the sport and I am not sitting on the sofa just waiting. I am training and preparing myself like I have a ride so that I am totally ready to go when I can get something sorted.”
MXGP will be born from the old MX1 category (essentially a re-branding exercise) for the beginning of 2014 and one of the common sights this year was a reduction in numbers for the premier class. With the 23 year limit rule pushing riders out of MX2 the bottle neck appears with teams struggling to field enough bikes and budget for a full MXGP Grand Prix season. Goncalves is perhaps the most high-profile victim of the squeeze this year but the landscape will get very clustered at the end of the next term with at least nine front-running racers having to leave the 250s due to their age. “The standard of MXGP is really high and it seems to be that we have now gone for quality over quantity,” Goncalves opines. “There may be less riders in the gate but there is a different standard of competition there. The level is so high and it is not easy for someone to be a Grand Prix rider now and arrive to the top.”
Multi-lingual and gregarious, Goncalves is certainly an asset for any team or brand away from the motorcycle, but a catalogue of injuries have contributed to a stop-start career when momentum has been his way. Now recovered and 100% fit the Portuguese – once a factory KTM and Honda star and he barely figured for the Ice1 KTM team in 2013 – is chasing a twilight renaissance in the FIM series. “I haven’t really set myself a deadline for a deal to be done but it is obvious that it is better sooner rather than later,” he said. “It just means everybody in the team can quickly settle and we can confirm a direction for work with the bike and the whole package. I feel like I have achieved good things in my career but there is still goals to be reached and I won’t stop believing in those just yet.”
