Motorcycling

From the Grassroots Workshop to the Grid: Scooter Racing and Metrakit

My connection to motorsport was inherited directly from home. Following the footsteps of my father, a former motocross competitor, I took my first turns on a small bike in Pradollano, learning balance along the mountain slopes of Sierra Nevada. Years later in Granada, I connected with an engineering-minded group of local enthusiasts building competition scooters. Their garage became my real-world school of mechanics: entire afternoons dedicated to rebuilding two-stroke engines, tuning continuous variable transmissions (CVT), and dialing in chassis balance.

I bought a bare Yamaha Aerox chassis and assembled a full-spec race machine from scratch. Around that time, former Grand Prix World Championship rider Enrique Maturana was setting up a factory-backed Metrakit squad. Armed with early marketing and sponsorship skills, I pitched a partnership proposal that earned me a wildcard seat on the team. The results followed immediately: front-running finishes in my opening races, securing my spot across the Andalusian Scooter Championship with continuous sponsorship from Metrakit and equipment support from Yamaha.

Supersport 600: Self-Funded Campaigns, Poles, and Qualifying at Jerez

Transitioning to middleweight four-stroke machinery marked a major leap in technical complexity and budget. Reinvesting every euro saved while working in telecommunications at Ono and Orange, and supported by my father, I acquired and prepped a Yamaha YZF-R6 to compete in the regional Yamaha Challenge. Adapting quickly to the 600cc supersport platform, I earned multiple podiums and pole positions in the Andalusian Championship.

I subsequently stepped up into the open SuperSport class with a more advanced R6 evolution, featuring race-spec engine internals, custom fuel maps, race suspension, and basic telemetry data logging. Competing against established factory-supported riders, I sustained pace throughout the calendar and secured regional poles.

The defining moment of my racing career took place in the Spanish Speed Championship (CEV). After several rounds struggling to beat the demanding qualifying cut-off time, we lined up at the Circuito de Jerez. The odds were stacked against us: torrential rain, an open paddock tent, and just my father serving as my sole mechanic with a standard hand-tool chest and rain tires.

In those austere conditions, I laid down a qualifying lap fast enough to make the official grid. That same afternoon, the factory-backed Kawasaki squad packed their haulers and departed early after none of their official riders managed to meet the qualifying cutoff time.

Team Management: Leading the Polini Racing Campaign in Italy

After stepping off the bike as an active pilot, I focused on giving back to the mechanics and friends who had supported my early racing efforts. I developed corporate sponsorship packages and handled business negotiations directly with Italian manufacturer Polini Motori, securing the budget to launch their official scooter racing team, where I stepped into the role of Team Manager.

I oversaw logistics, staffing, and operations for a 15-person delegation (riders, mechanics, data technicians, and support crew) traveling to Italy. The campaign represented a historic milestone for Spanish grassroots motorsport, becoming one of the first times an independent Spanish team competed on equal footing against the benchmark teams in the Italian national championship.

Trackside Methodology Applied to Modern Systems Engineering

Road racing and paddock management instill a structured mindset directly transferable to system resilience and Site Reliability Engineering (SRE):

• Telemetry Diagnostics and Setups: Correlating chassis telemetry with hot tire pressures, track surface temperatures, and suspension damping dynamics mirrors the process of tracing microservice latency and resolving infrastructure bottlenecks through observability stacks.
• Composure Under Critical Pressure: Repairing mechanical failures minutes before the pit lane opens or committing to high-speed wet lines at 240 km/h builds steady, analytical decision-making—identical to mitigating zero-day vulnerabilities and production outages where human error is not an option.