When Pit Beirer went to South Africa in the early 90s to spend time with Greg Albertyn and his mechanic, a certain Ian Harrison, no-one knew that 30 year later Ian, after would go on to win three world titles with Albertyn and go on to be Red Bull KTM team manager would have Pit as the top man in the Global race division at KTM. It is a case of friends reunited and the the trust built in those early days surely helped to make the current relationship blossom with such success. Pit knew Ian was good guy and capable from the start.
We asked Pit and Ian about those early days and if they ever envisioned they’d be in this position together all these years later winning at KTM.
Pit said: “In that time, we didn’t expect to have some proper job in the future, right?”
Ian Harrison. “Exactly. We were just kids having fun.”
Pit: “Yeah, but that’s it’s great. I mean, this is really for me a very special honor to have Ian with us in the group. I mean, it was I was the only German in the championship and Greg was the only South African and so my mechanic and Ian and Greg. We were like a team where you had all his French group and this Italian group and other countries with more riders. So we we stick together. We train together. We had a lot of fun together and storied we should not tell on stage!
“And it was a good time, but there we learned racing on the basic where like one man, one bike, one little truck, a little shitty truck and a great mechanic is enough to win a motocross race. And I learned from my job so much. I mean, I had to get carne to bring that bike to South Africa and how to bring it back and and and and fix the great and go to the customs. So I learned a lot from that time. And then, of course, having guys like Ian, we had to each other out. We learned a lot together. But of course, no, not one moment to think about this great careers in racing.
“I was watching him while he was in Suzuki in US and then we did our thing in Europe. I was still a rider and we came to KTM and. But that was it. I mean, the fundamental thing for successful racing world in KTM was my phone call to Roger and to Ian and that was a connection from the past. That was back in 2010 at Colorado, we met and we made this marriage that we could get Roger and Ian on our side together with me. The whole world of KTM motorsport changed there. So maybe the training camp in South Africa was the very beginning of that. Good memories and great to have Ian on board. He’s such a fantastic guy. It’s unbelievable. Thank you. Thank you.”
Ian then give his thoughts on Chase Sexton relative to all the riders he’s worked with before: “Yeah, I think Pit covered it all there and going back to your question about Chase as a rider, I’ve worked with a lot of great riders and I have to say that he is right at the top of that list. His fitness, his dedication, his writing talent. What I seem to do on a bike sometimes it just blows my mind. What these young guys can do today. It’s so impressive. And we just get the privilege of watching them and to see his growth through the season. To overcome adversity and just get stronger as it goes. I’ll take my hat off to him.
“We had 11 races here. Chase, podiumed 10 of them, won seven of them and to me just outright dominated. And the race at Southwick when he really got into his stride, from there we barely touched the bike. It was tiny little things and I just saw him getting stronger week in and week out and I’m really impressed. And thank you, Chase, for this great championship and these races. They’ll be in my memory for a long time and especially the one at Hangtown, that was unbelievable to watch.”
