Superbike News caught up with Luke Power during the World Superbike break before heading into Round 4, which took place at Misano this past weekend. Another Australian rider who has left his native country to pursue a racing career, Luke currently rides for the Motozoo racing team onboard the MV Agusta F3800rr in World Super Sport.
SBN: As always, we start with asking how you got into motorcycles and racing?
Luke: It’s much like everyone else’s story really, my father always wanted to race, but his parents never had the money to support him. My mother’s father raced, actually still does race, I think he’s near on 80 and he’s still racing. My parents bought me a bike when I was not even six months old, obviously I didn’t start riding then but I had the bike. I must have been about 3 years old when I started, first just in the backyard but eventually my parents took me to a small Junior motocross track without jumps and stuff and I really, really enjoyed it. We kind of went there every weekend and it sort of grew on from there. I think going to road racing was inevitable from there on.
SBN: How did you progress through the championships?
Luke: At the end of my first year racing I competed in the national championship in the 70 cc class where I finished 3rd in the championship. The year after, I moved up to the 85cc two strokes, which is not a big jump but it was all about progressing and learning. From there, I moved onto 300s and then Moto3 bikes. It was here that I was given the chance to try out for the Asia Talent Cup in 2019 from which I was selected to participate in the full championship.
SBN: Wow what an achievement, how did you find the experience?
Luke: It was incredible and a huge learning experience not just for racing but by being in another country. The travel that came with that and all the experiences that being away from home brought. It was a competitive year, as they all are really and I had a few top 10 finishes. Looking back on it, it really did prepare me for where I am now.
SBN: What did you do after the year in the Asia Talent Cup?
Luke: Well, the following year Covid hit and there was no racing. I was now back home. I was in my house, doing schoolwork and at the time it kind of just felt like my racing career was finished. After nearly two years of being locked down I said to my parents I’m sick of being stuck at home doing schoolwork. I didn’t enjoy it and I felt that I didn’t need or want a back up plan, I wanted to go all in, all my eggs in one basket so to speak with racing and I wanted to go to America. My parents are incredibly supportive and helped me pursue this and I ended up getting a deal to ride with a team over there. It was then that I met my Manager Michael Hill, at the Daytona round, my first race weekend and it’s just sort of snowballed from there, in a good way. I have landed in the World Championship with MotoZoo Racing Team with factory support from MV Agusta.
SBN: So it all progressed from nothing to something quite quickly didn’t it?
Luke: Yes it really did, from Asia being quite a big accomplishment at 14 to the lockdown of covid, where I genuinely did believe that my career was over to now in the World Paddock, it’s a short span of time. I remember during covid being in tears with my parents worrying that I was going to be a normal person, which I know sounds trivial, but I knew that’s not what I wanted for myself, I knew that I had more to give in my racing career.
SBN: How do you find all the travelling overseas?
Luke: I have definitely learnt a lot. I had my father with me in the Asia talent Cup, which was a blessing. It was amazing. It was really good to be able to travel with him and have him with me sharing the experience. Emotionally, it was really nice to have him with me, helping me learn the process of travelling overseas, how to navigate simple things like the airport which was such a valuable help when I competed in MotoAmerica as I was travelling by myself and knowing the process of how to navigate through an airport and through different cities and get Ubers, all of which is all second nature now.
SBN: Do your family come out to see any of the racing?
Luke: In Australia my grandad came to every race, he helped out with mechanics and doing suspension on the 600, I recall I was battling for a podium in my final race of the ASBK Championship on a 600 and my grandfather was doing suspension with one of our friends. My grandad’s been a really big part of my racing, I think he only ever missed one or two days of me riding, let alone racing when I lived in Australia. As for overseas he was able to come to Misano last year, which was awesome. However, it’s quite difficult for the family to come over from Australia because it’s just so far and fights are incredibly expensive, but they do watch all my races from home so I know that they are supporting me which is brilliant.
SBN: How have you adapted to racing outside of Australia?
Luke: Every year has been a challenge, though I wouldn’t change it. I jumped in at the deep end coming from Australia to MotoAmerica where you don’t know the tracks, you don’t know the riders and the bikes are a little more progressed than those in Australia and with rules being closer to that of World Supersport. The culture is different. The people are different. The way you work is different. So trying to understand everything was quite hard. Looking back, I’m very proud of my time there and moving on to the world stage wasn’t such a huge shock, even though it was a massive step. I wasn’t surprised to see myself on the second page of the screens or anything like that. I was quite content with that, to be honest. But my biggest surprise was the challenge and the psychological difficulties that are associated with it all. I am quite an emotional person. Everything is different together with culture and language barriers. You are riding for a new team on a different bike, different tracks, different championship, different rules and all against the best people in the world. And I guess I consciously as well as subconsciously put more pressure on myself to perform, even though I expected not to be on the front page in my first race. You know, every time something went wrong or I made a mistake in one corner on one lap, I wouldn’t forget it for the next two weeks. I would be angry at the mistake and I would feel like there was pressure from other people, not that they’re putting pressure on me, but the team does expect you to improve. You know that fans expect you to try and get certain results or whatever. And trying to deal with that in my first year, especially for the first half it was really quite difficult.
SBN: How do you feel you cope with all that now?
Luke: I guess I have learnt to understand how to cope with it and understand how I need to deal with it. My first half year wasn’t great. I struggled a lot with different things but hallway through the first year it just clicked, I was much more relaxed, much more happy, calm and just enjoyed the weekend a lot more and with that, it started to reflect in my racing.
SBN: You have been with the team for nearly 2 years now, do you feel at home there?
Luke: yeah, certainly. I get along really, really well with my team. Have from the get go, it does feel like a second family for me which is really important for me. Once I understood how to keep myself calm and understood the process that I need to undertake during a weekend, it’s been much easier, I guess you could say, in the emotional side of things. And now I can just focus on just trying my best during my racing and trying to improve every time, there’s always something that’s improving, which for me is important, because I know where I want to go. I know where I want to be. So if I’m not improving, it’s very easy to get lost and get upset with it.
SBN: Do you have any specific pre race prep that you always do? nutrition, fitness, stuff like that?
Luke: It’s not necessarily something where I think I couldn’t race if I didn’t do this, but there is definitely stuff that I do because I know it will benefit me, and I know that it’s good to keep a certain routine. I like to study race tracks quite a lot. Especially last year, obviously, because they were all new. I would study race tracks for a week before, watching videos of races from last year, qualifying sessions from the previous year. I just watched as many things as I could, try and pick up on different things. And I think that helped quite a bit in not only just trying to learn the track, but also just keeping me calm before a weekend. In terms of fitness, I train every day, but I don’t train the day before or two days before the first practice session. So I stop on a Tuesday as it gives my body time to recover from any fatigue and I can just relax and be as fit and as ready as possible for the racing. I kind of try and keep to a relatively good diet, in the sense that I try not to overeat a lot of things before, especially before a race weekend. I try to avoid things like chocolate and ice cream, which is actually really hard when you’re in Italy, but once the race weekend is over I absolutely will treat myself an ice cream.
SBN: What are your aspirations and your goals? You said that you know what you’re working towards. What and where is that?
Luke: I want to be World Champion, I want to get to the pinnacle of the sport. I think my goals are relatively similar to everyone else’s, I don’t think I’m any different than most of racers I ride with. I think every racer aspires to go as far as they can, earn as much money as they can, higher accolades and as many world championships as they can. Whether it’s in World Superbikes or MotoGP, which I don’t think is important necessarily right now, but I am working towards becoming a world champion, trying to progress through the ranks in which ever direction that might take.
SBN: Who do you aspire to be or whom do you look towards for inspiration?
Luke: There’s probably three that come to mind. My first idol, I guess you could say is, or was, Casey Stoner when he was racing. When I first started riding the dirt bikes and stuff I would watch MotoGP with my dad and we would go to Phillip Island together to watch Casey Stoner race around the track, his unique riding style sideways and spitting up smoke through turn three was awesome. Obviously being Australian and a world champion, he was my first idol. When he retired, he was replaced by Marc Marquez. There are a few things I admire about him, obviously, the first one is the riding style and the ability to put everything on the table, you know, throw the kitchen sink at it, and have incredible saves and beat people at circuits where he shouldn’t have beaten them. I met Marc at Phillip Island when I was about 11 and he must have only spoken to me for not even five minutes but it felt like an hour, he took the time to talk to me, sign a bunch of different stuff, take photos before the session, after the session, it was incredible. Lastly, the other person that I think is incredible on a bike is Toprak. He has phenomenal talent and also a really, really good guy. I never got the chance to meet Casey Stoner, so he’s probably one of the three people that I look up to where I haven’t actually met them, but I’m lucky enough that I’ve met Marquez and also have spoken quite a bit with Toprak and they really are nice people with incredible talent on a bike and that’s what I aspire to be.
SBN: Thank you for taking the time to chat with us today Luke, as with all our past interviews we like to finish with asking a really frothy question, if you could only eat one meal for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Luke: Hmmm, Chicken parmigiana and chips, its and Australian classic!
Thanks for talking with me Superbike News, I would like to give a massive shout out to all my sponsors, supporters and everyone back home in Australia and friends in America. Thanks to my manager who does a lot of work behind the scenes and finally the biggest Thank You to my parents who have sacrificed so much to get me here, they are the best!
Interviewed by: Kerrie McFadden
Website: First Turn Media
Instagram: Instagram
Luke Power: Luke Power Racing – Luke Power | World Supersport | Motozoo Racing by Puccetti
