REVOLVING RACER | DECLAN VAN ROSMALEN

Declan Van Rosmalen set aside some time between his busy race schedule to pen this Revolving Racer column for AMCN…

I’ve just completed an amazing week in Darwin for the TERRA 24 series. Hidden Valley is an incredible track, basically perfect. I wasn’t really treating it as a race week, more as a training camp. I ended up running at the front and winning all five Supersport races, which was unbelievable – even taking home one of the famous horned trophies! 

I hadn’t had a win for a very long time, which made it even sweeter and I learned so many new things. It was also great to work with the Addicted to Track team again after racing in the ASBK championship with them last year. This season I have been concentrating my efforts in the Spanish ESBK series with the IUM Motorsports team in the Stock 600 class, currently sitting eighth (we are combined on track with Supersport). 

I’ve only been racing three and a half years now, but it’s been a lot of work with rapid progression to see how far I can go, with the goal of racing in a world championship. My path into road racing has been a little bit unusual. My family moved to the United States from Melbourne when I was about seven years old. We were trying to keep ourselves active and I ended up getting a dirtbike and started riding with my dad. 

I was set on becoming a professional motocross racer, but my dad grew up riding roadbikes in Tasmania with a lot of time spent at trackdays. He suggested I should go to the track with him and see which one I liked most: road or dirt. I’ve never smiled so much going 180mph (290km/h) down a straight! 

Initially, I was just planning to go club racing with dad, but next thing you know I linked up with Josh Hayes. At the time I didn’t know who he was and how much he had won, but before I knew it he had me putting in the work and things were progressing quickly. We were pounding out trackdays and seeing how far I could push the whole racing idea. 

Through Josh I came into contact with Addicted to Track. He knew Mark McGregor from a trip to Australia and he knew I really wanted to ride Phillip Island. I travelled to Australia, met the crew – which included Steph Redman, who also picked up a TERRA trophy this year – and I immediately started learning so much. Steph was helping me lose bad habits and I really gelled with the team. I spent 2023 riding ASBK Supersport with the Addicted to Track team, with the intention of racing in the ESBK championship in 2024. 

Before heading to Spain I spent about six months in Sydney going to trackdays, racing, building and becoming a rider. We also did the preseason trip to New Zealand, which was also a great opportunity to learn and work together with the team. It was just myself, Steph, Anthony West and the crew. Westy helped me out many times but particularly in the rain where he helped me calm down and become better mentally prepared to race in the wet. He was teaching me about the bike, about different tracks – all the little things that have helped me so much while I’ve been riding in Spain this year. Mark has also been amazing. He wants the best for the team and to win – it’s a really supportive environment.

Steph works a lot on body position, looking at data and developing the way I deliver feedback. She can tell instantly what’s going on with the bike and the reasons why things happen. We also use a bunch of GoPros positioned at different angles, and straight away we can identify problem areas. I can then go out and fix them and see a rapid improvement. 

I won’t be returning for any ASBK rounds this year because the dates clash with ESBK, but my goal is to come back to Phillip Island in February for the WorldSBK round. I’ve learned so much racing here. I’ve made a lot of good friends the last couple of months and it’s absolutely crazy – mind blowing – how good the people are in the paddock in Australia. 

I’ve got to say a big thank you to my parents – my dad especially – without his support I wouldn’t be doing any of this and I’m really looking forward to spending some more time on the track with him, just riding and having fun. 

For now though, it’s back to Spain for the next ESBK round in a few weeks time!