JPMS – Academy FFM: is motorcycling a sport like any other? –

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Academy FFM: is motorcycling a sport like any other ?

JPMS - Academy FFM: is motorcycling a sport like any other? -

The keystone of the French Motorcycling Federation’s speed industry, the FFM Academy offers children aged 7 to 14 the opportunity to learn or improve their skills. It’s a change from soccer, judo or swimming ! Presentation to JPMS.

Created in 2005, the Academy FFM – formerly Mini Bike Academy – represents the first step in the "High Level" sector of French speed..

It allows girls and boys aged 7 to 14 to put on the gloves on an NSR 50, hoping to be able to climb to the Challenge Avenir, to access the French Espoir Team – from which Olivier Jacque, Regis Laconi or Sylvain left. Guintoli! – or even to race in Grand Prix 125 by integrating the Honda FFM team.

The goal of this "academy" is simple: to democratize the practice of motorcycle sport. "You have to be able to ride a motorcycle like you do football", summarizes Nicolas Dussauge on the occasion of the official presentation of" his "Academy at the sixth JPMS 2008 in Lyon.

Noting in the past that "the children who rode motorcycles had to have a daddy handyman"- or very easy – the FFM seeks to attract practitioners who are not from the biker world. A task apparently difficult, since the majority of registered children remain"children of pilots or dealers", explains Dussauge.

Manager, host and "dad" of the Academy, Nicolas Dussauge however insists on the fact that the FFM offers this formula "all inclusive". It naturally includes educational support but also the supply of the motorcycle, equipment, maintenance and logistics, all for a price of 3000 euros..

A significant sum of course, "but lower than the budgets required by other motor sports such as motocross or kart", relativizes the former rider in GP125 and vice world endurance champion."In 2008, we are planning eight two-day courses", Nicolas announces, or about one weekend of driving a month.

Based at the Alès Mechanical Center, the school aims to be semi-itinerant and therefore travels to other kart tracks during the year. "This is the only constraint for parents: travel", notes the manager. However, some are really worth it, like the one that leads on the Bugatti straight line at Le Mans !

"For four years it is Loris Capirossi who comes, in all friendship, to give the start of the gymkhana event which takes place at the opening of the mechanical show of the GP of France.", points out Nicolas. The opportunity to attend great fights – and illicit burns! – on the part of these apprentice pilots, who taste the first ovations of a crowd literally under the spell..

Prohibited from motorcycle competition before the age of 12 – "by a 1988 decree which no longer has its raison d’être but which depends on three ministries, which does not simplify its modification", Nicolas confides to us – some young pilots do not hesitate to participate in the Academy FFM for two or three years in a row.

"And what happens when we paid the registration but the kid wants to stop everything", asks one of the professionals present in the room?"An afternoon "discovery" is planned, probably during the February holidays … But no one gives up !", assures Nicolas Dussauge.

Once tested, the little Honda with box is quickly adopted and the children separated into two groups of level quickly develop a taste for swaying and "planted" of the pack … knee! Boys and girls alike, since Nicolas found to his astonishment that "30% of those registered are girls, some of whom come from very different backgrounds, like this girl who came from the violin conservatory !"

A story that did not fail to attract the attention of a certain Pierre William Gleen, the director and screenwriter of the cult film "Iron horse"!"He is currently working on a feature film project in which she would be the main character and in which her passion for motorcycles is one of the common threads. !", rejoices Nicolas Dussauge.

"Ultimately the hardest thing to manage is probably the parents", remarks Nicolas: they indeed prefer to take their offspring to oxygenate the muscles and neurons near their home rather than in Alès or Le Mans … To invest them a little more in the activity, the Academy FFM therefore decided to offer a small one-hour endurance race where the young driver teams up with mum or dad.

Finally, a big novelty for 2008: each aspiring pilot will be assigned a sponsor: "Randy de Puniet, Jules Cluzel, Matthieu Lagrive, Jean-Michel Bayle, Herve Poncharal, Christophe Guyot or Marc Fontan, among others, have already responded", specifies Nicolas … So goddaughters and godchildren, take your handle !

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