Jeffrey Herlings has done an incredible 4,500 race simulation motos during his career and that doesn’t include sprint motos! Herlings works with former world champ, John van den Berk, and it was van den Berk who recently presented him with the award that was posted on Instagram a few days ago.
In Spain we asked Herlings about the hours he puts in on the bike and he casually revealed the amount he rode leading into Spain that saw him finish second overall.
“It goes quick, like this week I did seven (race length motos), I did two on Tuesday, I did one on Wednesday, I did two again on Thursday, so when you do seven a week, it turns out that eventually you do 70, so in a month you do like a hundred almost, so it does count up when you make so many days of riding, but yeah, it’s quite some hours on the bike, yeah, I start feeling it like in the morning when I wake up, yeah, I’m worn out by now.”
Does he still enjoy riding the bike after all these years? “Yeah, I do, because actually this week in Tuesday I was at a track near my house, just riding, blasting out two motos, like 40 minute motos, like the bumps were like this size, up to my neck, like two meters deep, and I really enjoyed it. It was just me by myself with my practice mechanic, so I really enjoy that actually, even more than racing, because I am just big fan of the sport, I just love riding, and I follow everything; every Supercross, every outdoor, every MX2 race, European, I just follow, because I have a lot of passion for the sport, and I love the sport.
“And also the reason I’m still racing is because of passion. Yeah, you know, at some point money was also a very highly driven car for me, but at this point now, I got enough to have a healthy life, let’s say, or a wealthy life, like a good life for me, so I’m quite happy with what I got.
“So now I’m just racing for passion, and trying to win, because at the end of the day, I want to put in all the effort, and all these hours, and all these days, and weeks, and months, to try to win, and not to be 15th, you know? So as long as today, I’m finishing 2-2, I feel like I’m competitive, I’m good, even though I didn’t win, I’m happy, because I felt like I was competitive. The time when I’m starting to come like a 10th or 15th, yeah, then I want to be out of this place.“
Watch the full interview below as we talk about his qualifying race crash, the move to Honda and more:
