1 Callumis fromBenwerrin,
Victoria,notfarfromLorne.
2 Whilehewasprominentin
motocrossthroughouthis
Juniorcareer,hegrewup
doinga lotofridinginthe
bushwithhisdad.
3 Thisyearwashissecond
FinkeDesertRace.In 2018 he
wasontrackfora podiumon
debutforHondabeforea
mechanicalforcedhimout.
4 Since2006,KTMhas
achieved 21 podiums,including
ninevictories.
5 Nortonis 18.5 THINGS
YOU DIDN’T
KNOW ABOUTCALLUM
NORTON
2413READERS RIDE / FACTORY RIDE / HERITAGE / ACTION / OAS / BUYERS GUIDE
THE MANAGER
GLENN KEARNEY
Seeing the kid ride, his potential
and his age; he has got huge
potential. A big thing for me is
his size and the way he rides the
bike. He’s a big kid and strong,
which is defi nitely needed. His
riding style emulates Toby Price;
he sits on the back of the guard
and the rear wheel rarely leaves
the ground. He’s so smooth, he’s
got a good attitude and heaps of
potential. So that was the main
drawcard for me to get him on
the team. I think he’s got a big
future. Obviously we have a
really strong base package.Whenever we bring a rider on,
we start with that solid
foundation and then personalise
towards each rider. With Callum
being heavier than David Walsh
and his style putting him more
over the back of the bike, there
are defi nitely some differences
with the shock, which is quite
easy as we work with Stephen
Greenfi eld from GDR Suspension
up there. The changes are
probably quite small, but fairly
refi ned and defi nitely centred
around Callum. It’s probably
closer to a setup that Toby would
have rather than what David has;
just the similarities with their
size and style. Overall, he
adapted pretty much straight
away to the bike. He jumped on
and was happy; he didn’t want
to change much at all.
The biggest difference with
Callum was the bike being the
450EXC-F. Over the last
however many years, we’ve just
had 500s, so to switch to a 450
was a big change and he was
sort of the pioneer for the
450EXC-F for us, because it’s
been a long time since we’ve
had one up there. We were
really impressed with his race.
We’re obviously devastated with
what happened on Day Two. His
prologue was also
disappointing. He had an
ordinary jump off the start and
then came together with Jack
Dooley-McDonnell, which put
him in 13th. He made it hard on
himself going down but we
were impressed that he got to
Finke in fourth and fi rst in the
450 class.
Unfortunately he came out
swinging on Day Two and, a
couple of kilometres out of
Finke, he had a huge crash. He
was devastated because it
wasn’t whoops, he just missed a
braking marker and missed a
turn and ended up off the track,
doing some pretty big damage.
But that’s where I was really
impressed with him, because he
had 220-odd kilometres to go
and did a lot of damage to his
body. For him to man-up and
bring it home was impressive.
with Dylan Ruddy1.The KTM Desert Racing Team
hadn’t run a 450 at Finke for a while
2.Callum was the fi rst 450 to make
it down the track into Finke
3.First and fi fth overall this year,
despite Callum losing about six
minutes after he crashed
4.He sits well back, keeping his
weight over the rear wheel and
maintaining traction, like Priceyhttp://www.adbmag.com.au SEPTEMBER 2019| 153
GDR-TUNED
SUSPENSION
Foremost Media