Chris Walker (motorcycle racer)
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Chris Walker (born March 25, 1972 in Nottingham) is a British motorcycle road racer. His nickname is The Stalker. He is a four-time runner-up in the British Superbike Championship, and a former race winner in the Superbike World Championship.
Like Formula One legend Ayrton Senna, Walker has Bell's Palsy, which has paralysed part of his face. He lists his determination as his best feature, and his love of puddings as his worst.
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[edit] British racing
Walker only started road racing racing in 1995 after many years as an accomplished motocross rider but by the end of that year and into 1996 he rose through the ranks with ease and had ridden in Grands Prix and scored points. In 1997 he challenged for the prestigious British Superbike championship with Yamaha. He was runner-up four years in a row from 1997 to 2000, coming agonisingly close in the last of those, when an engine failure in his Suzuki took him out of a winning position with just 3 laps remaining of the final race at Donnington Park, leaving Walker in tears. He did however take a second place at Brands Hatch in the World Superbike round that year, the best of his many wild card entries in the UK rounds (and occasionally Assen in Holland) over the years.
[edit] International racing
Walker made an attempt at the 500cc World Championship in 2001. He predicted that "For me it's going to be the toughest year ever", which proved accurate, as the factory Shell-sponsored Honda that was hard to ride and forced Walker to over ride, resulting in many huge crashes. In 2002, he moved to the Superbike World Championship, initially with the Fuchs Kawasaki team.
Walker placed 6th in the championship for GSE Ducati in 2003, and 11th for Carl Fogarty's Foggy Petronas team in 2004, respectively teamed with James Toseland and Troy Corser (both of whom won the title the next season, Toseland riding the 2004 Fila Ducati to success and Corser the Alstare Suzuki in 2005).
In 2005 he joined the PSG-1 Kawasaki Corse team, proving to be the most consistent Kawasaki rider in terms of pace and results, securing one podium finish (3rd place, round 6 at Valencia) and finishing 7th place overall.
2006 saw Walker teamed up with Frenchman Régis Laconi and Spain's Fonsi Nieto on a Kawasaki Europe backed ZX-10R for PSG. Walker secured his maiden Superbike World Championship race win on the 3rd of September 2006 in Race 1 at Assen, Netherlands in his 131st race. Starting the race in 13th position, and dropping to 26th position at the first corner following an excurison onto the grass, Walker braved the torrential rain and a high rate of attrition to win in a time of 44 minutes, 23.501 seconds. He came 9th overall in the championship, 19 points ahead of Nieto as the highest Kawasaki.
Despite his finishing position, Walker was subsequently dropped by PSG for the 2007 season, when Kawasaki is expected to support PSG as an official factory team. This decision is commonly suspected <dubious> to be due to the greater amount of sponsorship that could be brought to the team by Laconi and Nieto.
[edit] Back to Britain
Walker initially struggled on the Rizla Suzuki in the British Superbike championship, occasionally outpaced by rookie team-mate Cal Crutchlow. When Neil Hodgson tested the bike [1] some speculated that Walker's ride was under threat. The team insisted it wasn't, and at Oulton Park he took third in race one, in tricky conditions which saw many top riders (such as Jonathan Rea, Gregorio Lavilla and Tom Sykes) crash out. This was only his second podium of the season. He was not retained for 2008. His points tally for the year was 225, comparing favourably to his team-mate's 152.
[edit] 2008
For 2008 he'll race in the Supersport World Championship for the very first time, for GIL Kawasaki team alongside teammate Katsuaki Fujiwara.
