N° 038 - TEAM P.K.L
 - CASANOVA
- Arturo
- ESP
- 28/11/1964
|
| MODEL |
MAKE |
| 525 |
TOT CURSES |
Arturo Casanova: “It gets harder to get sponsors”
Last year he did the best of his four Dakar races. Arturo is proud of having finished 37th and he can further boast of the two days during which he was the first of the Spanish participants in the race, after Marc Coma’s fall. The expertise of this complete amateur is clear from his results: 16th in the scratch of stage 13 and 23rd in stage 14, riding the Rieju prototype of his friend Fernando Prades. “This gives you some media coverage, and makes you proud of having taken part in the fight for the top for a little bit”. But it did not help him that much in finding sponsors for this year. “In my region, there are some problems in the building sector and important real state projects have been delayed. Although my friends value what I have achieved and the institutions are always supporting me, my results have not really changed anything.” Arturo knows that in order to meet the needed budget he might have to take out a loan, just like he did in 2003. “Since we appear rather at random on television, it is difficult to find good sponsors. Besides, everything is spent on football”. Arturo has worked as a mechanic, a painter and a farmer, and is now fireman in Oropesa, on the Spanish coast, so it is difficult for him to train. One week in Morocco is too expensive. And now, near his hometown Cabanes, there is a law that has banned riding a motorcycle on the tracks: “Now if you go out to the mountain, they look at you as if you were a criminal”. In spite of this difficult context, Arturo Casanova has entered his fifth Dakar full of excitement and hope. “I have a PKL, the new prototype of Fernando Prades, ancient mechanic for KTM, of about 525 or 540 cc. This gives me a chance to improve my results, but I still need to be cautious.” In short, Arturo Casanova: a rider’s ambition and the caution of a man at ease in his field.