Personal History
Throughout my early days practicing from the age of 3 I spent a lot of time just riding around the local fields and on novice practice tracks that were no better than a bumpy circle in order to gain the required skills to move further. Although as time went on and I grew slightly older, my family helped get a KTM 50, which is what lead me to many successful racing stories. I loved riding that much I used to wait for my father to come home from work every day and I’d be ready waiting with my little motocross gear on, boots, gloves and helmets waiting while I hounded him to load the bike in the car.
Speaking on behalf of Josh, his is Mum, Mel. Josh would often go to local practice tracks with his Dad and sit in the car and cry because there was a bigger bike on the track or if Josh was riding and another bike came on the track that was bigger than him, he would stop still and cry. This was just a faze while growing up through the PW50 stage before stepping onto the KTM, although we wasn’t intending on him racing until we was approached at a local track by someone who recommended it due to his confidence and riding ability that some how went from nothing to where he is now and Josh was all for it… We took him to his first ever race when he turned 6 and managed to score a 4th, 5th and 3rd.
While Josh was growing up he created a spectacular show for many people while racing from the age of 6 and mesmerized a lot of the racing spectators, some of which would gather round just to see him ride and then later talk about him in the paddock, some of which would finish there race and wait at the side of the track just to see Josh go off the gate and finish the race. Josh’s spectators would stand at the side of the track clapping and applaud him each lap he came by, because Josh was so consistent people starting call him Mr. Persistent, this is because if he was in the middle of riders there would be a big gap in front of him and one behind, this is where is strength shown because Josh never suffered under pressure and wouldn’t make any mistakes from any undergoing pressure from any other riders.
After racing for many years I rode for my BSMA club in three different “Team Event” races, my club was known as “Cotswold’s Motocross Club”. In my early years of racing there were some major competitors, some of which were 2 years older than me and shouldn’t have been racing with me in (I felt a little worried at the time) but as the championship went on I decided to give it my all. I finished the championship in 1st place, which secured me the title of “British Champion” something that seemed a long far fetched championship of me winning actually became realistic. I never knew what this actually meant at the time since I was only 9 years old.
After winning my club championships with Coventry Motocross club back when I first started racing and gradually progressing I thought it was time to advance on to a bigger bike at the age of 7/8 where I began to ride a KTM 65 in the “Junior class”. In my 65 careers it started off difficult, getting used to the new race timings and the extra amount of minutes I get per race but this wasn’t my main focus. The main focus was moving in to the top 10 every single race where I tried my utter best to apply this challenge on every single day I went to a race and every single race I had.
The pressure never once got me, I finally settled in to my group and everyone was having all sorts of thing’s done to help keep there bikes faster than everyone else’s since we was struggling we decided to try the same where we began to suffer from bike difficulties until some retired man in Swindon helped us out called, who goes by the name of “Burt” he done my engine at the best of his ability and also tried out some new techniques, I mean come on how many KTM 65’s do you know that has to have a custom made back sprocket because we needed a 44tooth?
Burt had helped me finish the remainder of the year on my KTM 65 where I won, 3 national events and 2 team event races as well as my club championships. My career goal went from achieving top 10 to top 5 and then sooner a top 3, which consisted of mainly wins, this is where I began to sit in almost every race I had attended. My racing career came to an halt not long after riding an 85 since my family split different ways at the end of my 65 career when I decided I wanted a break after having big opportunities, then there was just me and my dad left with as little as nothing. We still stand with not much money but my Dad tries his utter best to get me on the bike every weekend even if it means doing extra hours at work to help get me out, he’ll do it for sure and I do my part with everything I can with College and working online as a Freelance Website Designer.