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Bill Ballance Ohlins Racing AB Suspension Interview

One Hour With the King of Quads - Bill Ballance
Written by Henrik Samuelson | Photos by Harlen Foley & Fredrik Ljungkvist

8 Time GNCC Champion Bill Ballance travels to Sweden to tour Öhlins Racing AB Headquarters
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.

Bill Ballance has been racing with Öhlins Suspension since 2006
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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