VR46 Master Camp Progress
The VR46 Master Camp is dedicated to building up young riders and encouraging them to find their potential on and off the track. One major part of racing is fitness, an often overlooked nature of riding by many fans, but for those who have spent their lives on motorcycles, it is an aspect of riding that must be maintained – Valentino Rossi, who spearheaded the club to build talent for Moto3, Moto2 and eventually MotoGP, wouldn’t be a nine times world champion if he’d spent his days hanging out eating cannolis all day.
This week, Peerapong Loiboonpeng (Thailand), Galang Hendra Pratama (Indonesia), Soichiro Minamimoto (Japan), Kasma Daniel Bin Kasmayudin (Malasia), and Immanuel Putra Pratna (Indonesia) hit the gym to develop that discipline of training early on. The group of young riders made their rounds of a gym but also joined up for some Pilates classes, a pretty demanding workout. Their main focus of the day: legs.
After being split up into two groups, the riders cycled through Pilates classes and worked with VR46 Riders Academy’s Franco Morbidelli and Francesco Bagnaia, along with a personal trainer. Morbidelli, Bagnaia and the trainer worked closely with the Master Camp riders, showing them stretching techniques to prevent injury, as well as doing some spinning.
But their day wasn’t done – after burning a decent amount of calories, they were carted off to Tavullia for lunch and had some ice cream to replenish the calories they’d burned off. While there, they signed up for the Official VR46 Fan Club and officially became members.
What piqued our interest was their visit to the Andreani Group’s Suspension World Academy. There, the riders were loaded down with as much information as they could absorb, educated on the functionality of modern suspension and how to interpret feedback.
Some of the most important information came in how to accurately describe suspension feedback to their crews, ensuring that these riders will be successful in their continued career. Aside from a quick tour, we’re sure that those kids learned a lot that day.
The kids were all on hand to share their thoughts on the day.
Galang Hendra Pratama: “The work we did in the gym today was better, because we never have done Pilates before and the training we did this morning helped our bodies detox from the strain from the exercises and training on track we did yesterday. In the afternoon we had a lesson at the Andreani Group that we felt was very useful, because we didn’t have any theoretical knowledge on this matter before we came here, so this was a good step forward for my future as a racer.”
Imanuel Putra Pratna: “This morning was my first time doing Pilates. It was all new to me, but we had a good teacher so we were in good hands. We tried some moves that helped a lot to relax the stress from yesterday‘s practice session at the Motor Ranch.
“From our lesson at the Andreani Group I got a lot of knowledge and some of it I never learned about before, like how to set up the geometry of the bike and the center of gravity, and it surely will help me a lot to improve my lap time whilst riding on the track. Before I came here my skills to set up the bike were limited, but after today I‘m able to set up the bike perfectly and improve the set-up to become faster!”
Kasma Daniel Bin Kasmayudin: “The morning session was great. Because I never did Pilates before, this session was an eye opening experience for me, I liked it a lot! I suffered a small injury on my hip yesterday, but the training relieved the pain. The session in the afternoon was also very interesting.
“I already had a bit of an understanding of the smaller classes such as the 250cc, but the lecture at Andreani Group gave me an opportunity to gain knowledge on bigger classes such as MotoGP. I am using Öhlins on my motorcycle, but I wasn’t aware that they also made products for cars, bikes and trucks, so this was very interesting for me.”
Peerapong Loibeenpong: “I went to study Pilates in the morning to know how to stretch my muscles. It‘s a soft type of exercising but it helped me to be more flexible and elastic. After lunch we got a lesson on suspension from Andreani Group to learn more about front and back suspension and to know how the technique works in bigger competitions, such as MotoGP and WorldSBK. I acquired the skills to set up and modify the suspension, so it is adapted better to my riding style and the circuit‘s lay-out.”
Soichiro Minamimoto: “In the gym this morning I understood it’s important to practice stretching every time. I did pilates for the first time and I realized that the muscles in my body are tightening. I would like to continue doing these calisthenics to improve my physical condition. In the afternoon I was given the opportunity to see the inner mechanism of the suspension and I reconfirmed how to set up a bike. I hope to make good use of these lessons in the future when I will compete in races.”