Right on track

Last year Nelson's Karel Pavich became the first woman to win a New Zealand solo motorcycle racing title. Last week she was rewarded for her pioneering efforts with an AMP Scholarship, one of 13 achievers nationwide to receive the award. This weekend she begins the next phase of her competitive career and talks to Wayne Martin about her achievements and goals.

The male ego is a curious thing. It's been known to impede rational thought processes and it can be notoriously unreliable in determining length.

Yet each time Karel Pavich straddles her Yamaha TZ250, she

insists she's not making a statement about feminism.

She's not about sticking it to male pride or trying to dilute the testosterone-fuelled world of Grand Prix motorcycle racing.

But try telling that to some of her fellow competitors.

While Pavich admits that the majority of New Zealand's male riders have accepted her as a bona fide competitor in a tough and man-friendly environment, there are times when that's been put to the test.

There's a logical reason why some of her male competitors haven't fully embraced her presence on the national racing circuit. It's because she's good - and she proved that last year when she became the first woman to win a New Zealand solo title with victory in the 2006 250GP New Zealand national series.

Pavich isn't about proving anything to anyone. The only person she has to convince, she insists, is herself.

"The whole point with it was that I was doing it for my own reasons," says Pavich.

"I'm passionate about the sport, I love racing motorcycles. That's the reason. It wasn't to say, `Hey, look at me'. It was purely for my own reasons.

"It's fair to say the guys don't like being beaten by me. Some of them get a ribbing from their mates - you know, the usual story, beaten by a girl. It does create some extra motivation for some guys - I know that."

Pavich has been racing motorbikes competitively since 1988, although she became hooked much earlier as a 16-year-old after moving from Hamilton to Auckland.

"Like most teenagers I was a bit of a hoon. Of course, my mother thought I was going to be another temporary New Zealander - she had a few heart attacks from some of the antics that we got up to."

She won't tell you her age, though. She says it can be counterproductive in finding sponsorship.

One of her early boyfriends used to carry her around on the back of his bike. Then one day she moved up front - and that was it. She's been trying to stay in front ever since as her competitive spirit began to forge an unusual sporting career path.

"It certainly wasn't normal for a young woman to want to go and do that. But I have to say that in New Zealand, I was really well received by the guys and I built a lot of friendships - some of which I still have now with guys that I'm racing with.

"And I think we're quite lucky here in that we are treated with relative equality in this country, so I've never really had an issue with that."

So chalk one up for the Kiwi male. Offshore, though, it's been a disturbingly different story.

Early in her racing career, Pavich teamed up with fellow female racer Ann Martin and headed to the United States to compete in six-hour endurance events. And it was at one specific meeting in Portland that Pavich experienced the more sinister side of threatened male egos. Pavich relates the incident.

"I got taken out in Portland in a situation that I was completely unaware of. I didn't even know what happened.

"From all accounts, certainly it looked like it was a deliberate attempt to get me. I came off second best. I broke my collarbone. It was just disappointing really."

There were inevitable repercussions and the offending rider was banned from the meeting.

"I didn't feel that the women had the respect and equality that we're used to here in New Zealand. Apart from the people who invited us over there, outside of that, we weren't welcomed that much when we did well on the track.

"And so when Ann and I won the six-hour in the 600cc class, that really changed a few people's attitudes and we found certainly a bit more opposition to what we were doing.

"It happened another time, deliberate or not, but at Manfeild I got taken out really badly as well and hurt the bike a lot.

"That was in 1990 when I was racing in the 600 Production class. It just makes me more determined really. It's going to take more than that to stop me and guys just get so bloody-minded about it sometimes that they just do stupid things and stop thinking.

"We all do things and see the red mist out there but don't endanger other people with those sort of stupid attitudes."

She's encountered similar rogue attitudes in Australia but remains adamant that Kiwi hitmen are the exception - not the rule.

She's ruffled one Kiwi's feathers in particular, however - the man she beat into second place for last year's national title.

Invercargill's John Beck had won the title the previous season and was again challenging strongly for the crown. But with Pavich riding consistently throughout the series, she trailed Beck by just five points heading into the fifth and final round at Christchurch's Ruapuna Raceway.

Pavich again performed impressively, recording two firsts and a second for the three races, having also recorded the quickest qualifying sessions. Her lap time of 1min 39.7sec was a full second ahead of the next rider.

She finished eight seconds ahead of second-placed Beck in race one to put her equal on points. She then finished six seconds clear of the field in race two, with Beck third, to give her a nine-point lead heading into the final race.

Then, amazingly, Beck pulled out of the final race, Pavich settling for second behind Christchurch's John Lowther. The crown, though, belonged to Pavich.

Beck's decision surprised Pavich and she interpreted it as an admission of defeat.

"He said to me afterwards, `Oh, you were going to win it anyway'. You know, I was streets ahead so there was a high chance that I was going to win the championship.

"It would have required a mechanical failure or something to prevent me from winning it. I would have had to not finish the race.

"But he chose not to compete in that last race. Maybe he just didn't want to get beaten again. I never really got to the bottom of it."

Whatever Beck's motivation, Pavich felt that she'd genuinely earned the title.

"I won it on my own merits, it wasn't handed to me. We had to fight for that all the way. I feel happy that I won that championship."

The `we' Pavich refers to includes her husband and mechanic Lester Ferdinand who, along with Pavich, comprises Team KP Racing. They've been together since 1989 and were married in 1994.

They've shared most of Pavich's triumphs and disappointments.

During her seven-year career until then, Pavich had competed in the 250cc production class before securing a sponsored ride with Honda on a CBR600 to finish sixth in the 1989 New Zealand 600cc championship.

She returned from her brief stint in the United States to take up another sponsored ride with Suzuki, finishing fifth in the 1992 New Zealand 250cc championship. In 1993 she rode a Yamaha TZ250 GP bike in formula 2 class in a move away from production bikes.

But two years later, and disillusioned with her progress in the sport, she decided to retire from competitive racing, heading to Asia and Australia to pursue other business and travel interests.

"I wasn't going anywhere with it," she says.

"I felt like I'd hit a wall. I wasn't achieving the results and it became quite difficult for me. We were trying to stay afloat financially with my own business and I was frustrated that I couldn't achieve better results."

(Pavich is a business development manager with Orbit Corporate Travel.)

"All of my results in the nationals had been in the top five or six. But I knew that I could win and I never knew how to get there and how to make it happen.

"So I became frustrated and you try too hard when that happens and you don't know how to get around that. It was a hard decision, I did it very sadly, but I felt that I wasn't getting anywhere."

They headed to Sydney in 2001 and, as chance would have it, found themselves living close to Eastern Creek raceway. With Pavich's GP bike still in storage back in New Zealand, they decided to dust it off and "have a bit of fun".

It sparked a revived sense of enthusiasm and passion in Pavich as she committed herself to achieving her unfulfilled goals. And with a chance to compete at Phillip Island, the competitive urges came flooding back.

For the uninitiated, Phillip Island inspires the same degree of reverence among motorcycle enthusiasts as St Andrews does to golfers or Lords does to cricketers.

"It's just the best track in the world. It's just fantastic so if you do nothing else in your life and you own a motorcycle, go and ride around that track.

"It's challenging, exciting, demanding and fast. It is something to conquer because it is such a challenging track."

More significantly, it heightened Pavich's desire to resume competitive racing.

After cutting her teeth on production bikes, returning with a Grand Prix bike offered Pavich her best opportunity to achieve her elusive goals.

"Grand Prix racing is different to production racing. I'd only ever done my first years of racing on production bikes.

"You're compromising the bike. It's built for the road and you've got to make it worthy for a race track which means the suspension and the tyres aren't always up to it.

"When you get a purpose-built bike, now that's different, that's pure-bred. It does everything, everything's adjustable, it's absolutely built for the track.

"I wish I'd started a lot earlier on the Grand Prix bikes."

Where they made do with an annual budget of about $3500 back in 1994, now, says Pavich, the bike owes her $30,000 - "and that's a 2004 (specification) - but you'd spend a lot more."

They're constantly adjusting and adapting to keep the bike competitive.

"They're high performance bikes and you're constantly maintaining them. You know, we do a set of pistons every three days.

"They're high maintenance because they're high performance so you've got to constantly throw parts in them. That means that you're also riding safely because you're riding inside the tolerances for safe performance for the bike.

"You want the best tyres all the time or you want to be able to put new tyres on when you need them. You don't want to compromise and have them bald because you've got old tyres on. That's false economy."

They returned to New Zealand in 2004, settling in Nelson, with everything finally falling into place with last year's championship success. And according to Pavich, she's entering a new phase of her career as she prepares to kickstart her 2007 campaign at Ruapuna this weekend.

Yesterday's practice session was the first time she'd been on the bike since March, having maintained her fitness levels through running, weight training, cycling and various multisport events. Yoga has also helped her flexibility and mental focus.

"It makes it really demanding because it's not like any other sport where you can practise most of the time."

Controlling 100kg of machinery at speeds of up to 250kmh requires plenty of mental stamina.

"I've had a mental holiday because there's a lot of mental application required in the sport. Winning is really in the mind.

"I won the championship because I applied myself to it mentally. All the ingredients are there with the team and the bike and that, but at the end of the day, it's about how you work the processes within your own mind.

"It's the whole package really. It's the challenge of being able to master a bike or a machine around a track as fast as you can and all the senses that come into play.

"That's really the challenge - getting off the bike and saying I gave it 100 percent. Now that was why I stopped racing in the beginning, because I couldn't reach my 100 percent. I wasn't happy that I wasn't getting near my potential.

"It's only sometimes that I can get there now and that's why I know that I can get further with this because I'm not able to come away from the bike all the time and say I've given it my best. I know there's still more inside me."

If people identify Pavich as a pioneer and role model, then so be it. She's happy to accept the responsibility.

"As a role model for women in general, I have achieved so much based on the belief that I can do it and would love to inspire others to reach their own potential.

"Armed with the knowledge, experience and determination to succeed, I feel well equipped to coach and mentor others who share the same passion and drive.

"I really wished I had someone around me who could have helped me when I needed it over the last few years. It was the one thing that I really lacked and I realised that I had to pioneer this path myself."

In many respects, the journey has only just begun.

- © Fairfax NZ News