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Motor Mouth: Stacey Nesbitt, 14, first woman to reach podium in Honda CBR125R Challenge

The most amazing thing about Stacey Nesbitt isn’t that she’s a young woman riding a motorcycle. It’s not that she’s a wee wisp of a thing, barely 45 kilograms soaking wet on a 5-foot-5 frame. Nor is it that she’s only 14-years-old, a mere babe in the woods when it comes to motorcycle racing. It’s not even that she won the 2011 Honda CBR125R Challenge (although that is why I am writing this column), the first woman to win a fully accredited national road racing series in Canada (and, some have contended, the world).

No, the most amazing thing about Stacey Nesbitt is that she’s been riding a motorcycle for only two years. No riding of minibikes since she was a toddler in diapers, no father pushing her into junior motocross when she could barely walk nor even a whole bunch of time playing pillion behind Dad on his Harley.

Oh, there is the fact that her first family outing when she was but four days old was to a Joey Dunlop (the Emerald Isle’s most famous road racer) charity exhibition back in her homeland of Ireland. But, as Grant, her father, retells it, she took to the sport rather reluctantly. Her first foray onto the track ended up with her running off the tarmac at a Racing Associates Canada Events (RACE) School that is a prerequisite for actual competition.

“She frightened herself,” says Nesbitt pere, a lifelong motorcycle enthusiast but never a racer. “She didn’t want to go back out, and that first year [2009], only our oldest daughter, Toni, raced.”

It was hardly a surprise since Stacey’s total sum experience in motorcycling up until that point had been a few spins around the driveway on a pocket bike and watching races from the stands. With no experience with a clutch, both kids had to be pushed off from the starting line.

“That’s how bad they were,” says the now-beaming dad. “They really didn’t know how to ride a motorcycle. Stacey learned to ride a motorcycle on a race track.”

It was only after a year of watching her sister compete in the CBR125R Challenge that Nesbitt bugged her dad for another chance. Her first foray was a race at Shannonville Motorsport Park near Belleville, Ont. at the end of 2009. Soaking wet, racing in a downpour in what was essentially her first real ride on a motorcycle, she finished next to last.

It’s been a steady rise to the top of the heap since then. Last year was a learning year, says Nesbitt, who went from finishing at the back of the pack to “being able to run with the boys in front.”

The turning point seems to have been a visit to Michel Mercier’s FAST Riding School at the end of 2010. And even though her lap times were slower on the more powerful Kawasaki Ninja 250 than on her own 125, both father and daughter credit the school with teaching her how to ride better and, perhaps more importantly, how to analyze her technique and improve her riding style.

“I really didn’t know the basics of riding a racing motorcycle,” admits Nesbitt. “I knew how to change gears and open the throttle, but I didn’t know anything about throttle control, turn-in points or even what or where an apex was.” She obviously took instruction well: She was in second place in her next race before falling.

Nonetheless, Nesbitt’s goal at the beginning of 2011 was only “to become the first girl to reach the podium in the CBR125R Challenge.” She exceeded that by some margin, winning the second race of the series and going on to win five of the championship’s 10 races, taking first overall by more than 50 points.

Nesbitt is not the first woman to distinguish herself in motorcycle racing. Canada’s Kathleen Coburn beat all the men in a national amateur 600 race in 1985. In 2009, American Melissa Paris was the first woman to qualify for a World Supersport race and finished second in the United States Grand Prix Racers Union (USGPRU) GP250 championship. More recently, 17-year-old Elena Myers (the first woman to win an American Motor-cyclist Association pro road race) became the first woman to test an 800-cc MotoGP racer by riding Suzuki’s 200-plus-horsepower GSV-R at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Nesbitt wants more. She hopes she can continue her success in this year’s CBR250R Challenge and then move on to 600-cc and 1,000-cc superbikes. She even admits to dreaming about some day racing in MotoGP “or at least Moto2 [MotoGP’s feeder series].”

She’s already sampled the bigger bikes and can’t wait until she’s racing those. “I rode a 600 at Shannonville,” Nesbitt says, with the enthusiasm that most teenaged girls reserve for boy bands. “It was just so awesome — the power, the speed at the top of fifth gear and the way the brakes bite. Everyone told me how scared I would be, but it was just so much fun.”

And for all those Neanderthals (yes, there still are some) who think motorcycle racing is still just for boys, look at the picture that accompanies this column and try to tell me you see any less determination for the lack of a Y chromosome.


David Booth