Carter Thompson
14-year-old Carter Thompson is a busy boy! He is also very fast!
After winning the 2019 bLU Oceania Junior Cup Championship and then becoming the 2020 R3 Cup Champion here in Australia, Carter did get a start in the Asia Talent Cup at the young age of 11, but the plague of COVID saw some major interruptions and entire season cancellations.
Carter has been competing in the Asia Talent Cup this year but has struck some bad luck at times, however he broke through for his maiden victory at Sepang on the weekend in what was a brilliant and well calculated ride.
Last month, Carter successfully made it through a hotly contested process at Autodromo di Modena in Italy to be selected to join the Red Bull MotoGP Rookies Cup for 2023. Three days of intense track action at the Selection Event, featured 115 young riders from 29 nations, and resulted in only eight riders being invited to join the Red Bull MotoGP Rookies Cup for 2023, and Carter was one of them.
Carter already has a vast amount of experience under his belt and while he generally likes to leave his talking for the track, I touched base with him this week to try and get a better understanding of what it takes to survive, let alone thrive, in the hotly contested Asia Talent Cup races. You can catch up on the races, or watch them live, on YouTube, as I have done this season.
So, Carter after the triumph that was the brilliant victory in race one at Sepang, followed by the disappointment of race two, you headed back to your European base in Spain. Tell us about where you are based and what you get up to on an average week?
“About an hour north of Barcelona, near Granollers. Normal week, ride a bike as much as possible, at least one day at the kart track, one day flat track, some trials riding of an afternoon, normally we go cycling three days during the week, and just plenty of physical exercise.”
Who are the main people you knock about with during the week, and who of the internationals are you most friendly with in the Asia Talent Cup paddock?
“Sometimes I have got Collin Veijer staying with us (races in Red Bull Rookies and FIM Junior GP), and I train with Harrison Voight he is about 45 minutes away, so we go and train with him a bit, we were up at Harry’s yesterday afternoon.”
And of the international riders, who do you get on best with in the Asia Talent Cup paddock?
“In the ATC, the main ones would have to be Gun Mie, Rei Wakamtasu also from Japan, and Hamad Al-Sahouti from Qatar I get along well with. All are friendly, although the language barrier with some can make it difficult.”
Could you give us some insight into what it is like to race the Asia Talent Cup? From afar, it looks as though that when battling for position a rider can take almost any line, and that line selection while in battle seems to make little appreciable difference to the outcome.
“The best way to explain is that every single bike is identical. Right down to tyre pressures, gearing and even fuel load. Basically, it is I guess what you could call an extreme parity, to highlight the riders ability, as opposed to who has the fastest bike.”
Apart from the nationality of the competitors, what are the primary differences between the Asia Talent Cup and the European Talent Cup, that you contest with the AGR Team. In ATC you ride on Dunlop rubber, while I believe ETC races on Bridgestones, but what are the other primary differences that the two different series present to you as a rider, or the unique challenges that are different between the two.
“In the European Talent Cup, the racing is a lot closer, I feel that the racing is a bit faster too, a bit harder, because they have been training like this and for this their whole life, every day of the week.
“A normal ETC round you have 55 kids turning up to try and quality for 30 positions. Recently at Aragon the top 12 were covered by less than half-a-second. Whereas in the Asia Talent Cup you generally have a group of five or six at the top, then a bit of a gap to the next group.
“The Bridgestone and Dunlops do make a bit of a difference on the bike, but not too bad, you can swap between them okay, and the different thing we have in ETC is the data logging system to really look and compare each lap. Look at all the points on the track where we are losing time and look at exactly what the bike is doing on track.”
Carter’s dad Nathan – “While the ETC data is private within the individual teams, in the ATC whatever data there is used towards helping everyone. A few people questioned some of Carter’s lines through the tight sections on the weekend in Malaysia, but he would then end up gaining more further on in the track through the windy sections, and he was the only one doing those lines. The ATC riding coach went through the race one footage and used Carter’s lines as an example of what they should be doing. Change the corner entry in one place but you might not see the advantage until three corners down the track which is what the case was in Sepang.”
The Asia Talent Cup bikes lap Sepang on a good day in the 2min18s, the Moto3 World Championship category pace is over six-seconds quicker.
Asia Talent Cup bikes are going through the speed traps at a best of about 215 km/h, the Moto3 GP bikes are about 15 km/h faster.
For us old blokes that remember the glorious days of the 125 cc two-strokes, more than a decade ago, the 125s from back then were lapping around a little over a second slower than the latest Moto3 bikes, and about 5 km/h down on top speed.
But anyway, back to the present, can you tell us what you know about the primary differences between the tightly controlled to a standard specification Asia Talent Cup bike, which are based on a Honda Moto3 machine, and the World Championship level bikes?
And do you know how the Red Bull Rookies Cup bikes compare to the two? You ride a control Honda in Asia Talent Cup, while in Red Bull Rookies it will be a control KTM.
“Other than the frame and the externals of the engine, the ATC NSF is a dead stock bike as it comes from the factory from Honda, it has just got an exhaust on it. Showa supply some suspension that makes change the settings a bit easier, it is not better in performance than the standard stuff, just makes the lives of the suspension tech a bit easier. Other than that, they are a standard bike.
“Compared to Moto3, everything is different, suspension is different, 100 mm taller through the suspension, engines got about 20 more horsepower, gearboxes difference, aero is different, everything is different. All the World Championship Moto3s now also have gone to the system whereby they no longer have a neutral at the shifter between first and second, neutral is engaged by a lever you must pull, eliminating false neutrals. There is so much difference.
“That is the other reason why you see such close racing in ATC, the bikes are all identical, everyone is weighed at every round, some kids have weight added. Another difference between the ATC and ETC, some of the Asian kids are very small, so in the ATC I am not the biggest but I’m one of the biggest, despite not being very big, while in the European Talent Cup I am carrying ballast weight.
“When I first joined the ATC I carried ballast there, but not now I have grown a bit and become one of the bigger kids in the field now, which hurts us a bit when it comes to slipstreaming as some of the smallest kids can really tuck in real tight behind the screen, and with these bikes having so little power, every tiny fraction of a gain can be telling.
“Some of the smallest kids I can’t slipstream past them, so then have to try and get it back in the corners, which on the other hand might now be a little easier for me being a little larger and perhaps a little stronger, to manhandle the bike a bit more.”
Thanks for your time, Carter in helping myself and the readers more insight into the Asia Talent Cup and the various other matters concerning various race series where riders compete on essentially equal machinery. It is quite hard to get a handle on the complexities of it all in regard to these current stepping stones on the Road to MotoGP program.
Now let’s talk to dad… Nathan, can you tell me the sort of time and financial commitment that this season has taken to do what you can to ensure Carter has the best chance for success?
“We are paying a significant amount of money, and the only way we managed to do that is to sell the house and live over here for the racing season. That is the only way we could afford to do it.
“Obviously, some teams are a lot better than others and have a better package, we are lucky with the team we have got, we are not paying the higher end, and it is not the lower end either, but we got a very good package with a great team.
“Collin Veijer also rides for the team and has got a couple of wins this year in JuniorGP and is riding World Moto3 next year and Joel Kelso rode with last AGR last year.”
And with also taking on the Red Bull Rookies Cup in 2023, how is that going to change the dynamics in the time and financial commitments compared to this year?
“For us, because we are Australian, it is going to be make it easier. This year whether we were in Australia or in Spain, there was going to be a lot of flying with doing the Asia Talent Cup, and the price of flights this year have been high it has cost a fortune. Whereas next year with Red Bull Rookies every one of the rounds are in Europe similar distances that we have to travel when racing in Australia so from where we are based here, and we can drive to most of them.
“It was under ten hours’ drive to Modena for the Red Bull Rookies try outs. I think they selected that track as it is not one people generally ride all that much, thus nobody really knew it like the back of their hands. Carter loved the track, was technical which he loves, and he did really well.
“The two real standouts at the selection that were fastest were Spaniards Alvaro Carpe and Alberto Fernandez, Carter was very close to them and adapted to everything very quickly.
“Being able to adapt, Damian (coach back in Australia and Motostars series promoter Damian Cudlin) has always drummed that into us and worked on that with us, changing things up as much as possible. Has always had us jumping from bike to bike, different tracks, changing things up as much as possible.
“He said years ago that when he got rides over here, it was partly because he could adapt and get up to speed quicker when jumping on something different, compared to most, and in some cases would get rides ahead of riders that, if given time, were probably faster than him, but he could get up to speed quicker, and got some rides ahead of others off the back of that. Early on.”
Nathan, what would be your advice to any young family looking to embark on the journey that you and your family have already been on for a couple of years now, and no doubt bare a few battle scars from…? And of course, you not only have Carter racing in Europe, but also his young brother Hudson contesting the Oceania Junior Cup races back in Australia! Double trouble!
“And yep, doubly broke… (laughs) That one is actually very difficult… Knowing where to go, what to do. Hudson is obviously a very good rider himself so navigating the next step with his riding is not easy.”
And for other families looking into this sort of journey?
“Plan a lot… That’s probably the best advice. It is a great journey… and we are doing it as a family over here, which I think is better for everyone in a way. We are a close family, so us being split apart for the best part of the year was not really a good thing.”
And I guess if you are careful the cost of living in some ways can actually be cheaper than in Australia at the moment…?
“We live with the team owner, he has got a big house, and we really appreciate him doing that, we are close the teams base and there are a lot of tracks near here, which makes training so much easier for us, and that helps tremendously with the costs obviously, rather than trying to find and rent a full-size house.”
Thanks Nathan, thanks Carter, all the best for the remainder of the year, and hopefully we will run into you at The Bend for the ASBK finale.
The Asia Talent Cup next heads to Indonesia for the final round alongside World Superbike at Mandalika on the weekend of November 13. But prior to that Carter will contest the final round of the European Talent Cup this weekend at Valencia. Notching up those frequent flyer points!
Next year, 2023, Carter will contest both the Red Bull Rookies Cup and the European Talent Cup.
