After many world titles and years of success, we managed to catch up with Ruben Tureluren, the coach for new MX2 world champ, Kay de Wolf, and of course the former long-term practice mechanic for Jeffrey Herlings.
To underline the level of experience he has, Ruben also worked for Ben Townley, even moving to the States with him when he was on Pro Circuit Kawasaki battling Ryan Villopoto!
We thought it would be great to catch up with Ruben to get his insight into what it is like working for three world champs, the highs and lows of racing and put a spotlight onto his own career that has been incredibly successful after an injury stopped his own GP racing aspirations.
This was a fun and interesting one! Watch or read below:
Ruben, just want to talk about your career as a highly rated mechanic. We’ll start with this season, Kay Wolf, World Champion. I’m sure a big relief because this has been building year on year for him and finally he got the title year.
Yeah, when we started last year, obviously it was a big change coming from Jeffrey, so I tried to implement as much as I could, things that I’ve learned and things that I’ve seen. That could improve and last year we won our first GP and the week after he broke his foot, so that was a bit of a shame, but we still fought through and then before Lommel, he had a compression fracture in his back, so that set us back and just to say that actually last year we were also on a good way. I’m not saying he was going to win it, but we were fighting also last year for it.
And then obviously a long winter again and I’m trying to, to work on all different aspects, not only speed. I mean Kay de Wolf was already a good rider. I think we all together just made them a little bit better and that’s what brought us the title this year.
And as a mechanic, you’re kind of a, I guess a mental coach, you have a lot of good, you have to have a good relationship with your rider. How is that with you getting to know Kay for him to take on board what you’re saying, as well as all the mechanical work?
Yeah, to be clear, I’m actually full-time his coach, so Kay has a practice mechanic and has a race mechanic and we have a really good crew chief too else. So we all work together and we just try to work on getting the package for Kay better and of course that relates sometimes to the bike.
So we are together and bring him the best possible package, but my job is also to physically prepare him, mentally prepare him, and try to bring the best Kay de Wolf to the track, which is obviously not easy, but we did it this year and I’m really, really proud of the steps that he made. He surprised me in many occasions and he stood up when he had to. Of course in the end there it was a bit more difficult to manage that lead and obviously you had a young gun from our team hunting him and going full gas and so, yeah, it was difficult to manage.
How was it for you to see him start the season so strong and then manage that as you said. Did you see it difficult for him or did you feel he coped quite well?
Kay was always smart enough to think about the big picture which was winning the war, winning the world title. So, yeah, you can win a fight, but it was for us all about winning the championship. But Lucas was such a strong competitor that, yeah, I mean it wasn’t easy.
Did it make it more difficult because he was on the same team and you’re both managing the same truck?
I’ve had this situation before when I was working for Ben Townley in the US and we were battling Villopoto all summer long in the outdoor. But here it was slightly different because Lucas is really, really close with the father. So, yeah, it was… We never had bad moments, you know, we never had bad feelings or anything, so it was just a nice fight. And when you can do it with the team, it’s so much nicer also for me, you know, winning so many GP’s, 16 out of 20 with the team. So, it was a dream season.
Kay’s talent. I don’t know how much we get to see in races – you probably see stuff he does in the practice track that blows your mind – he’s amazing to watch.
Yeah. He’s very loose on the bike. He’s just working with him, dad, and the stuff he can do in the practice. Yeah, that’s what I mean. Like, you don’t have to teach Kay de Wolf how to ride a motorcycle. It was all the other aspects to be a world champion that we had to work on.
You know, you never have to explain him technical things on the bike because he’s so gifted. And of course, when he’s free during the week and there’s not the pressure of the race, you see even more stunning things than what you see in a stressy GP situation or whatever. So, yeah, he’s just very gifted and talented. But like I said, we tried to work on the other aspects to be a complete rider and to be a world champion.
How do you see you compare as a person to Jeffery Herlings at a similar age, especially?
It’s a big change, but I would say, you know, they are 10 or 12 year difference. So, in those 10, 12 years, a lot has changed also just in normal life with normal kids. So, I would, they are quite a bit different. And it took me also one year to figure out which buttons to push for Kay to get the best out of him. And yeah, they were quite a bit different from Jeffrey, I would say, yeah.
Jeffrey, especially when he was young, you’ve been with him with him his whole life. He was really aggressive, really kind of like Haiden Deegan for people who didn’t see Jeffrey, when he was young. But that difficult for you to keep him not going in different directions and keep him focused.
Now with Jeffrey, it was, we didn’t need many words because we got together so young. So, it was always basically hard work and doing more than others that would make him mentally really, really strong.
He was doing that himself?
Yeah, the last couple of years we did a lot of the physical stuff together. But in the beginning, I started as a mechanic for him. But you’re spending so much time together that your mechanic role shifts into also being a mentor and a coach and a friend. And he’s asking advice all the time because it’s the two of you always together. And yeah, so also there, I think we got the best out of Jeffrey all the time, you know.
You have a lot of high and lows and you were so close to him, you’re feeling that experience, yourself.
Jeffrey is mentally so strong that any setback he can overcome, and we fought back so many times, you know, from bad, bad injuries. And so I have a lot of respect for the way he always got up. You know, they knocked him down 10 times, but he stood up 11 times. So that hats off to do that mental strength.
There’s so much motivation that he still has. Did you ever have to calm him down? Like, don’t go out, this Tuesday afternoon and ride you’ve done enough, or anything like that?
You try to manage that, but Jeffrey was very selfish (strong willed). Like, he would do what he’d think and now I could convince him to maybe adjust it a little bit. But in the end, it was always hard work and doing more than others that would make him feel strong going into the GP. Even though, physically, it wasn’t maybe the best thing to do, but just mentally, it would have made him so strong.
Yeah, whereas with Kay is the opposite. He needs to feel good. He needs to feel good and when he is, he doesn’t need to ride as much during the week. As long as he feels good going into the weekend, first practice is good, bike feels good.
He doesn’t really ride as much as Jeffery?
No, no, no, no, no, not nearly as much. But I’ll make him suffer another way.
You mentioned Ben Townley there, how did he compare to Jeffrey and Kay?
I think that he was technically compared to Kay and Jeffrey, a little bit less maybe, but he just was really strong mentally as well and he could hurt himself really much in a moto or he could be really hard on himself mentally to say, hey, I can’t make this mistake and he wouldn’t make a mistake.
I need to suffer to try and be with Villopoto or beat him or whatever. So he was just… he was really hard on himself as was Jeffrey as is Kay but there’s different degrees.
As a mechanic, there’s so many races, well, you know America as well. Did you get tired as a mechanic?…
I tell you one thing, as long as you’re winning, you can get through it. But if you have to do this for 10th position, which a lot of people do, not everybody can win, you know, it makes it harder.
But I was lucky enough to be always in a position to be fighting for the podium, which is the ultimate goal, you know. So I never really got tired because I was lucky enough to always fight for our podiums.
How many days/hours a week did you get off?
I had so much passion. I didn’t care. We would do anything to win. Especially with Jeffrey. It was really time consuming. Now with Kay and with the organization we have behind us, it’s better. It’s better like I get more time and he rides a bit less, so it’s less time on the road. So with Kay it is probably the best mix I had with Ben when I was in the U.S. It was full commitment. I was living with him. I had no life. My life was motocross.
Does that take a lot out of the rest of your life? You miss stuff?
Yeah, when I get older now you think about it more. With Ben I was so young. I was so excited. All you wanted to do was to go out and work hard and try to be on the podium and challenge for championships.
Do uou prefer not being a mechanic now?
I really liked it. I really really liked being the training (practice/mechanic. I never liked being a race mechanic. I did a couple of race mechanics with Jeffrey. But I didn’t like that.
I think my strength was in being a practice mechanic because you’re closer and you’re talking about stuff. The bike, the lines, the training, the approach of how you’re going to do stuff. So I really liked that and I miss it sometimes. But now as a coach it offers other jobs and I really like it too – no dirty hands anymore.
Did you ride yourself?
Yeah, I raced one year of GP’s and then I had a bad accident and so I had to quit.
Was that difficult, to stop doing what you love?
Yeah, at that point yeah because you don’t know any different but now seeing so much and having seen so much. I was training really hard if I compare it now or if I see things. But I just didn’t have the mental strength to know that myself that I was good enough to do it.
Did that help you do this or a mechanic but more importantly the relationship with the rider.
I think, yeah. I mean I know what I was lacking to ever make something in motocross. I mean I took a couple of points that first season in the GPs’ but I mean yeah, I don’t think you necessarily need to be a good former rider to be a good coach or understand what they need. It’s such a sensitive sport in the sense of feeling good and if they feel good, I mean they all can ride a bike at this point.
If you’re riding GPs you’re probably a pretty high level rider yourself so if you go through that probably help with them. But Kay, obviously there’s a decision of moving 450 looming in the next couple of years or you go to America. And you’ve through that with Jeffrey?
Same story, yeah. Same story. I just, I just advise him. I tell him things that my experience in America here. I tell him the pros and the cons and he needs to decide in the end. I’m not pushing many for anything here.
Actually we’re going over to America in two weeks to have a bit of a supercross holiday.
Like Jorge did?
Yeah, kind of the same thing. Just to see it. He said if I’m World Champion, we promised him, me and Rasmus was that he could do a full-size supercross training, you know, and the best is to go to the U.S.
He wouldn’t do what Prado did and race the first round?
No, no. The goal is to be World Champion in MX2 next year.
And Jeffrey did that when he was 15/16…
Yeah, I went with him.
Easy to watch, hard to watch?!
Jeffrey thought he could learn it in two days which obviously you can’t! I think Kay knows this a bit better. Yeah, for Kay, you know, I think his future is in the GPs. But we can go out and try it and see what he feels like.
I think Mitch Payton had said he is keeping an eye on him…
Yeah, yeah. It’s a small world. It’s a small world.
Thanks Ruben not just on this season but also your career working with these elite champions, it says a lot about you as well.
Yeah, I have to thank Nestaan Husqvarna, Rasmus and the team owner for having faith in me. And when they spoke with me after Jeffrey, it worked out really well. Two years later.
Was that a hard split, you had been together so long. Obviously you knew Kay and everything. But just to make that transition?
People come and people go. And in life, things happen. It’s no bad feelings. I get along really good with Jeffrey and I’m really, really happy today where I am. It’s all good.
