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One Hour
With the King of Quads - Bill Ballance
Written
by Henrik Samuelson | Photos by Harlen Foley &
Fredrik Ljungkvist
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8
Time GNCC Champion Bill Ballance travels
to Sweden to tour Öhlins Racing AB
Headquarters & test the new TTX44 Shock
for the 2008 racing season |
(Sweden) -
Old
Macdonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O… Yeah, so
what! Bill Ballance has got one too, along with
a private racing team, 7 race prepared state-of-the-art
Yamaha GYTR 450 quads, a private 200 acres MX park
in the backyard, 28 sponsors, a contract with Yamaha
USA and 8 consecutive GNCC titles… beat that
MacDonald!
I can’t really hide the
fact that I am looking forward to finally meeting
Bill Ballance. Back home in Sweden were I live,
the ATV sport is something really far off the
chart and the only quads that you see around are
a few skinny 250cc Chinese ATVs with cold, wet
commuters saving some bucks escaping the congestion
charges from passing through the central areas
of Stockholm thanks to a loop hole in the regulations
concerning pollution taxes in Sweden’s capital
city.
So when I finally get a minute
or two to myself, I try to find a comfortable
and peaceful place to sit down for a while and
read the never ending stream of dedicated American
all-quad magazines with tons of action pictures,
funny articles and slick ads convincing me to
get all sorts of practical accessories and cool
gadgets. The question is pounding in my head…
why… why do they have more fun over there
and why is the sport so big?
It is not that hard to figure
out the reaction when a colleague from the Offroad
R&D department at Öhlins Racing AB headquarters
came over to my office telling me that Bill Ballance
was coming over to visit our facilities and test
a homemade prototype piston for his TTX44 racing
dampers for the coming 2008 season. Yippee!
Monday morning, the time is 9.37
am, seven minutes after schedule Bill Ballance
takes the corner before the long straight down
to my office. He is escorted by Torkel Sintorn,
Offroad R&D Racing Manager. I shake his hand
and the only thing that I think of is that the
coming interview better be good. This is an once-in-a-lifetime
event and I don’t want to mess things up.
We sit down and I really want to know where it
all started. When and why did you come up with
the idea to become a quad pro? I just had to ask
him.
Bill, how did it all begin?
I was five years of age when I first rode on a
quad. It was actually a three-wheeler in the beginning
but I soon started to ride on a 4-wheel quad.
I designed and built my own tracks on my family
farm and I just had a great time pushing the quad
to the max from breakfast to supper. When I turned
15 a much older and more experienced quad racer
came home to challenge me and I actually won!
He was really thrilled and started to push me
to go head to head with other riders in a proper
race. After a lot of convincing my parents finally
let me go and my first ever race was in Brownsville,
Kentucky. I came in second and I was hooked for
life; Bill laughs.
Did you have any ATV heroes
when you were young?
Yeah, for sure. Barry Hawk, Bob Sloan and Gary
Denton gave me a lot of energy and they sure made
an impression.
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Bill
Ballance has been racing with Öhlins
Suspension since 2006, and he will continue
to race with Öhlins for 2008 |
You have been in the game
for some 13 years now, what is the most positive
trend that you have noticed and taken part of
in the quad community? (Bill leans back in
the chair in front of me. He lifts his cap, scratching
his head and looks up at my dull, white-ish ceiling.)
That’s a really good question. I would like
to say the involvement from the quad manufacturers.
They have fully understood the power of testing
and trying out new technology together with us
pros and it is a tremendous change the last couple
of years. Second of all I would like to say that
it is possible for serious riders to make a decent
living in the sport today. I had to work full
time on the family farm the first five years of
my professional career before quad racing took
off to become a serious respected sport with committed
sponsors.
You
mentioned the involvement from the manufacturers;
can you see any positive trend within the quad
segment in the coming years?
The gap between a race quad and a standard aftermarket
product is getting smaller and smaller. Today
there are only a few things that differ from the
standard quad and within the next year or two
the gap will almost disappear. I am actually in
the process of finalizing the new 2009 450cc quad
as a side project together with Yamaha. We have
been working very hard to present something really
spectacular, but you have to wait for another
8 months or so (Bill smirks.)
In Sweden everything is
all about arena sports like hockey and soccer,
close to the city centers. What is the trend in
the US when it comes to outdoor sports like quad
racing?
Basketball, football and baseball are of course
the major sports in the country but all sorts
of motorsports are growing like crazy for the
moment. Dirt bikes, ATVs, Enduro racing, MX…
you name it. I saw some statistics seven or eight
months ago back home that the racing sports was
actually the fastest growing segment in the US
in comparison with the athletics sports such as
baseball and football.
Why
is that Bill?
I think it is quite simple. 15 years ago we had
like two decent quad magazines, no internet sites
and no aired events. Today we have at least 7
great magazines, thousands of passionate quad
sites on the internet and we actually have full
coverage of all GNCC races, aired twice a week
on Thursdays and Saturdays on national TV by Versus
and ESPN2.
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