Home view from World Cup newcomer: This is how motor emigrant Noah Dettwiler lives in Spain

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The reason Noah Dettwiler (18) lives in Spain can be found in a black notebook. The motorcycle racer sits on his bed and opens the magazine, revealing a bunch of written pages. The World Cup newcomer writes down all his circuit training by hand, line by line: which machine, which location. Many pages are completely written. Because Dettwiler is on the bike almost every day and is training for his first season as a permanent Grand Prix driver. “The only time I don’t do anything is on Sunday, which is regeneration day,” he says.

On these Sundays, the motorcycle talent from Hofstetten-Flüh SO enjoys his home in Valencia, as you can imagine life in the Spanish winter on the misty Swiss plains. With sunglasses, without a thick coat, with brunch in a hip restaurant on the beach promenade, a walk in the warming sun. Pure enjoyment.

But six days a week everything revolves around his work towards his big motorcycle dream. Six years ago he rode his first kilometers on a circuit and now he is the first Swiss in the Töff World Championship since the dismissal of Tom Lüthi (37), who is his sports advisor and has a relationship with his sister Noelle (29). ). The hobby and grand goal of GP racing has become serious. “Motorcycle riding is actually my job now,” says Dettwiler, apparently still a little surprised that he lives a completely different life than other 18-year-olds. The training for a commercial diploma has been suspended for the time being.

A house in a remote residential area

Dettwiler lives in the motorcycle paradise. He trains almost every day on large and very small bicycles. And in winter the weather is also suitable for training on your racing bike or mountain bike. “I can train here every day. That is simply not possible in Switzerland,” the World Cup debutant said when Blick visited him a month before the start of the season.

He lives outside Valencia in the “Urbanicacion del Bosque”. This is a huge residential area surrounded by walls. The road here leads through orange plantations. A gatekeeper operates the barrier, there is only one entrance to the area. Visitors can only enter this residential complex, where around 10,000 people live, by registering. Many locals also live here far away from the hectic city because of the peace and safety. There is also a golf course. Dettwiler noticed how widespread this was during one of his first jogs. “Suddenly I heard loud screams. Only then did I realize that I had walked over the green,” he says, smiling.

Solothurn’s cheerful character lives in the holiday home of a friendly Swiss family. Swimming pool in the garden included. Nespresso machine in the kitchen. Protein bars in the cupboard. A PlayStation to learn the new World Cup routes. His personal mechanic Agustin Victoria Fraj (23) has also withdrawn. The two have become friends and sometimes go out together in the evenings. The local manager takes care of Dettwiler’s private motorcycle equipment. “I drive so much that I don’t have time to maintain and prepare everything myself,” says Dettwiler. During Blick’s visit, his mother Nicole will be there for two weeks; she works in the home office for the family’s construction sealing company. Her husband Andy runs the local company in Switzerland.

The painful search for suitable housing

She is happy that Noah and Agustin share an apartment. “I had to give a few cleaning tips,” says mother Nicole, laughing. But these are luxury problems compared to what the family has experienced in recent years.

It took a long time for Dettwiler to really settle in Spain, after he emigrated four years ago at the age of 14. “In the beginning I sometimes had problems,” he says. Finding suitable housing is difficult; sometimes Dettwiler even lives in a student hostel.

A project with a host family goes wrong. There is also the pandemic. Mother Nicole will not see her son for six months due to travel restrictions. “There were also tears on the phone,” she says. These are moments of doubt. With talent and with parents. Is it really right for the son to live abroad at such a young age? Tempi passati.

Use of the circuit for 30 euros

The boyish teenager with the big MotoGP dream has become a young adult who has now arrived in the Moto3 World Championship and also in Spain. In addition to Italian, English and French, he speaks fluent Spanish.

For Dettwiler, his two-year contract with the French CIP-KTM racing team is confirmation that he was right to persevere in Spain. The country is a pioneer in training motorcycle talent. Reaching the World Cup without daily training is hardly conceivable given the increased professionalization.

Spain becomes the hotspot of the motorcycle world, especially in winter. Dettwiler looks back on an intensive day with two training sessions. In the morning he rides on a private karting track near the town of Villena, south of Valencia. The route costs 30 euros and is paid in cash. There are no noise regulations. Neither does marshals. On this day, in addition to professional Dettwiler, amateur riders also ride laps, even an over-motorized scooter makes noise in circles. Spain, the promised land of motorsport.

Later, another GP rider appears, Moto2 rider Filip Salac (22). The Czech also lives in Spain. He even has a whole group of boys in tow, who are trained on their mini-töffs like a school class.

But Dettwiler himself also regularly attends a racing school. It is now afternoon. It is 18 degrees on this beautiful Saturday in February. The highway roars nearby, planes take off from the nearby airport. Here is the training center for FC Valencia’s football professionals, as well as a huge complex with cinemas, restaurants and a hardware store. There are no tourists here.

Even the little ones ride laps for four hours

The road safety center that founder Kike Banuls’ KSB racing school can use has nothing to do with the glamor of MotoGP. Banuls and his employees train drivers here. It is certainly not the only racing school in the country; motorsport is a sports business in Spain.

Divided by age and power, the engines roar for four hours. It’s about the “skills” – line choice, reaction time, feeling for the limits of the tires, the sensitivity to the riding physics of a motorcycle. Dettwiler describes that Tom Lüthi was initially skeptical about whether the racing school was really useful. But his protégé convinces him that it will help him enormously in his career; After all, riders like Iker Lecuona (24) grew up here and made it to MotoGP.

The big GP dream is omnipresent in the exhaust fumes. Even girls and boys in kindergarten zoom around the pylons on small scooters. The parents watch from behind the gang, equipped with camp chairs and supplies. The hours in the saddle take their toll on the fabric. At least with the little ones. A little boy falls asleep in his mother’s arms.

But Dettwiler is also tired from the long day. The sun has long set and it has become cold. This episode has also been forgotten: Dettwiler discovered during training that his mechanic had set the tire pressure incorrectly, and he reported this to him on his mobile phone during a break. At least in Spanish, Dettwiler sounds quite irritated.

The family pays for the mechanic themselves. One of many messages. There are no costs associated with the Moto3 World Championship, on the contrary. Dettwiler’s sponsors pay a six-figure sum for the entry year. It must be an investment in the future. Because Noah, his parents, Lüthi and manager David Kriech all know: nothing has been achieved by joining the GP, a tough learning year awaits.

But now Noah is especially hungry. Before showering at home, the Dettwilers go to the nearby shopping center. Pasta at the “La Tagliatella” food chain. Dettwiler’s Spanish motorcycle world is back in order. Especially with the prospect of recovery the next day, a Sunday brunch and a walk on the beach in the sun. And especially with the growing anticipation of the GP opener in Qatar.

Source : Blick