PROFILE
Name: Luke Shelley
Nickname: Shelldem
D.O.B: 25/02/1992
Age: 18
Hometown: Tamworth
Height: 5'11
Weight: 65kgs
Bike: 2001 Yammah r6
First Race: 2005 Whilton Mill
First Win: Beccles, Minimoto GP
Best Racing Moment: Been asked to become a team rider.
Worst Racing Moment: Breaking my right collar bone out for 6 weeks
Favourite Circuit:Larkhall, Scotland
Most Respected Rider: Lee Sweetland
Ambition: To move onto 600’s and compete in a championship.
Hobbies: Mountain Biking
Likes: Speed
Dislikes: Crashing and loosing!
Favourite Food: Pasta
Favourite Music: Anything
Favourite Movie: Fast and Furious
Helmet: Shark
Leathers: Teknic violater
Boots: TCX
Gloves: Alpinestar gp plus
Career Highlights
2005/06: 5th Phoenix Winter Series
2006/07: 4th SERMC Southern Championship, 1st Stretton Production Winter Series Champion, 2nd Stretton Aircooled, 1st British Aircooled Winter Champion, 2nd British Production Winter Championship.
2007: 1st Aircooled MMRA British Champion, 3RD Production MMRA British Championship, 1st Aircooled SEMRC Champion, 2nd Production Championship
2008: 1st Production MMRA British Champion, 1st MMRA British Champion.
2009: 1st Production National Pocket Bike Champion, 1st Supers National Pocket Bike Champion.
2010: 1st Production British Champion, 1st Supers British Champion.
MY SCRIPT
Luke was introduced to Minimotos by his father who was a Blata Dealer, he took him to a local minimoto club ‘Menimotos’ After about 10 minutes of watching he was hooked and wanted to ride. He wanted to do it so much his father went straight back to build him a bike for the following week, Luke ended blowing up his Chinese replica within the first session. As Luke loved the bike racing so much his father went and bought him a genuine Blata race bike which he practiced on for a few months at Priory Park and Fradley and meet some great friendly people there. Then he entered his first race at Whilton Mill in 2005.
Luke’s First race meeting at Whilton Mill, Mid-season of the Southern Winter Championships. It was a totally different ball game for Luke, he was used to track days and couldn’t get used to going flat out from the flag drop. He soon realized he would have to push himself a lot harder to even become slightly competitive in the minimoto racing scene.
In 2006, Luke entered the Southern Championship in the Aircooled A class; it was a very big class full of amazing riders like Gino Rea and Danny Kent. The first round came quickly. Luke ended up in poll position at his 3rd race meeting, unfortunately he didn’t have much race craft and struggled but still came in respectable 5th and 6th positions. Towards the end of the season Luke learnt his race craft and started to bring home the silverware, but still couldn’t manage a win till the very last round when the championship was settled. Over the winter in 2006/2007, Luke went and bought a production classification bike and then joined the two main winter championships the British and Stretton Winter Series. Luke did amazingly well in the Aircooled class with one British Championship win and Runner up at Stretton Winter Series. Luke was a new comer to the Production Class and it was probably the hardest and fastest class then too. He did extremely well finishing 2nd in the British Winter Championship.
In 2007, Luke finally got what he had been dreaming about, Trevor and Ben Mair offered Luke a team ride for Havoc Racing. This only took him minutes to decide to join. Luke competed in the British Championship as a team Havoc rider against the best riders in the UK, such as Alex Olson and Danny Kent in the Production Championship. Luke was able to achieve a few race wins, and managed an overall 3rd in the Production Class, which was awesome considering the competition he was up against. In the air-cooled class it was a different story, with Luke claiming over half the race wins which achieved him the British Championship title.
2008 came round so fast. Luke decided to stay in the same class to try and improve on his 3rd place in the Production Class of last year. He managed to do so by taking 24 wins out of the 33 available. That was a major improvement over his previous season which gave him the confidence boost to go and join the Super class for the last round. The last round came along and Luke struggled to get to grips with the super on the Sunday but yet managed a time only .3sec of pole position. This Season Luke still competed in the Air-cooled class where he won every race of the championship, and claimed every lap record at every track. Luke gained both British Championship titles in 2008 which was an awesome achievement.
In 2009 Luke tried out a different championship and different classes. The National Pocket Bike Series (NPS). Luke entered into the fastest class with the fastest riders in the UK, the Super and Production classes. Luke went out in the production class and proved his quality on the track were he won the first 18 races on the bounce. Where as in the supers class, Luke was still coming to grips with the power difference and took some big crashes at the start of the season. He then regained his rightful place in the championship back to the top. Throughout the season there was awesome racing with Lee Sweetland, Ben Parti, Mark Pearson etc. The end of the season came and Luke had already bagged both championship classes with one round to go. His season couldn’t have been any better, as he claimed over 4 lap records. At the end of this season Luke left Havoc Racing with the intention of riding as a privateer in 2010. May thanks go to Tevor and Havoc Racing for all their support in 2008/9.
2010 Luke received an offer from a new race team RacingMinimotos.com. Racingminimotos.com is a new website dedicated to the minimoto scene with the intention of promoting the sport with the assistance of some of the top riders. The website has a live forum, latest events, lap records, tracks, championship results and more. It has all you need on there to find your way in to minimoto racing. Luke started this season knowing it was going to be his last so he set out with the intention to leave his mark on the sport and take a maximum race wins and break all the lap records. All was going well. He won every round till he got to his home track Whilton Mill in Daventry, where Luke was leading the race and his chain snapped going down the finish straight throwing him over the handle bars and out the race. Fortunately Luke was okay and got back on in the next race claiming the rest of the wins after Liam Shelley (Luke’s dad) rushed to get the bike ready and set up for the last race. Another highlight of Luke 2010 racing was round 7 at Lydd in Kent. Racing against Lee Sweetland in the wet, they were pretty much unstoppable from the start to finish. Luke got the hole shot every race and from then on he and Lee were swapping paint. It ended up we both won our classes on the day which was awesome in the torrential conditions. Luke bagged his final minimoto championships becoming Double British Champion once again. Luke was undefeated in the Productions Class claiming 24 race wins and 8 pole positions. He also dominated the Supers Class with 8 pole positions and 23 race wins. This is a record. He also gained 6 lap records throughout the year.
Luke has been extremely happy with the performance of his RMM Team Bikes, and would like to thank the team Racing Minimotos (Darren Norton & Niamh Norton) for all their support this year. I would also like to thank Andrew Downs for his financial and consistent emotional support throughout this season.
Please come back soon to see Luke's latest progress.
