Chris Walker (motorcycle racer)

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For other persons of the same name, see Chris Walker.

Chris Walker (born February 25, 1972 in Nottingham) is a British motorcycle road racer. His nickname is The Stalker. In the 2006 World Superbike season he raced for the PSG Kawasaki team. Chris has since signed to ride in the 2007 British Superbike championship for Rizla Suzuki. He had previously raced in this series, and in the 500cc World Championship.

Like Formula One legend Ayrton Senna, Chris 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.

[edit] British racing

He only started circuit 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 GP's 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 Chris in tears. He did however take a 2nd place at Brands Hatch in World Superbike 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 Chris to over ride, resulting in many huge crashes. So for 2002 Chris went to the World Superbike series, initially with the Fuchs Kawasaki team.

He was 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, Tosland 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 Chris teamed up with Frenchman Régis Laconi and Spain's Fonsi Nieto on a Kawasaki Europe backed ZX10R for PSG. Chris secured his maiden WSB race win on the 3rd 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, Chris 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 series, 19 points ahead of Nieto as the highest Kawasaki.

Despite his finishing position, Chris 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 the other racers, Regis Laconi and Fonsi Nieto.