Team owner of the Nestaan Husqvarna factory outfit, Kay Hennekens might not be a name known to everyone in the sport, but he is a well-respected man within the MXGP paddock. A long-time fan of the sport, and also a long-time supporter, Hennekens is one of a handful of successful businessmen, who are not just fans, but a major part of the Grand Prix set-up. Without them, we would suffer terribly and fortunately, men like Hennekens continue to be in love with the sport of motocross. For that, we are all grateful.

We decided to give him a call and find out who he is, and where his passion came for the sport of motocross. A typically Dutchman, who is correct, modest, quiet, loyal and passionate about his team and riders and continues to look for ways to help make the sport a better place.

As a three-year-old, Hennekens was fascinated by the sound of motorcycles in the forest next to his house and that fascination grew with every year. This is a two-part interview, and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoying doing the interview.

MXlarge: Kay, thanks for doing this. Of course, the regular motocross paddock people know who you are, but I thought it might be nice for the general fan to find out who you are, your background in the sport and your vision for your team. Firstly, where did you passion for motocross begin?

Hennekens: I am born in the south of The Netherlands, near Maastricht, so really in the south. I lived on the edge of a forest, and we had a local track in the forest. I was three years old, when I walked away from home, so see the motorbikes and that is how it started.Heard the bikes and my dad told me to be patient, and we will go and look, but I couldn’t wait, so I just wandered off to look.

MXLarge: Wow, then its really in your blood. I know I started with my fascination when I was 10 and its truly in my blood, but three years old, that is young to start to enjoy it.

Hennekens: That was the first time, but I didn’t really get into it until I was six years old. It was a second-hand bike, it was a 50cc Montesa, a trials bike, we had a lot of fields around the house, and I used to ride around there, and I would stop when the tank was empty.

MXLarge: Did you progress onto racing, or just had fun on the bike?

Hennekens: I did do some racing in The Netherlands until I was 18, in the MON, the amateur federation. I then went to Enduro, did the ISDE in Poland and The Netherlands. I did some two-day events.

MXLarge: You got to a stage that you realized racing wasn’t something you could make money from or become professional?

Hennekens: I was not good enough. I was not fast enough, and I had no opportunities, because my parents didn’t care and I was 18 years old and had to take care of my own motorbike and to fix the bike, so when you are 18, it isn’t easy. On the other hand, it made me what I am today, so I am not complaining about it.

MXLarge: I am not sure what Nestaan is, is that a family business?

Hennekens: I was racing motorbikes and my sister had horses, but she was a boarding school, so I had to look after the horses for my father, then he helped me with my bike. At the beginning of the season, he would buy a bike at the start of the season and help me with that. My current wife, came to visit the horses of my sister and we started a relationship, then we got married and around that time, I started working with my father-in-law and that was with the Nestaan company.

MXLarge: Nestaan have supported riders for a long time, when did that start?

Henekkens: I raced myself and we went into rally racing with Frits van Eerd from Jumbo (Van Eerd was CEO from Jumbo, a large supermarket company in The Netherlands). We did that for four or five years in a row, became Dutch champions and stuff like that. In 2001, I went to a round of the Dutch Masters, in Velthoven and we saw a young rider, called Jan van Hastenberg and he was from the same village as Frits, and we decided to support him. I took care of that, fixing the clothes, the bikes and everything. After a while, I called Frits and told him I had a spread sheet with all the expenses, and he paid half of it and that is how we started supporting riders.

MXlarge: So, 24 years ago, when did you start to sponsor Jeffrey (Herlings), was that around that time also?

Henekkens: We had no team at the beginning, just a couple of riders, with KTM in 2003 and 2004. Actually, the first year was not 2001, but 2002 and we started to sponsor in 2003. We did 2003 and 2004 and then 2005, 2006, 2009 we did Honda and then I supported Jacky Martens for a long time, and then we decided to do our own team.

MXLarge: Doing your own team, which is a big thing to do, financially and just the organizing of that. What made you want to run a team?

Henekkens: I supported Jacky for a long time, but something happened there, and I decided I wanted to quite the support of the team. I went home and told my wife; I am going to stop with this support. My wife mentioned that I cannot do that, as the riders are there, because of my support. One or two days later, I called Robert Jonass (head of motorsport KTM/Husqvarna/GasGas) and told him I want to quite the support. He told me, please don’t stop, we trust you and why don’t you do your own team. I thought about it and spoke to my wife about, and she said, if I want that, I should do it. So, I called Robert back and asked if he meant that, that KTM would support our team, and he told me, yes, I mean it. He told me, we look for partners we can trust. I told him, I have no building, no van, no team, tell me what we can do. I picked Thomas Olsen, and I also wanted Rasmus (Jorgensen), and I was already close to Rasmus, so he was the only one that knew. Robert told me, he will fix a long-term contract straight away and that is how the team started. He sends over the deal, we thought about it for a day or two and the deal was done, as easy as that. The next day I bought a building, and we refurbished that and that was a lot of work, but it came out well. The guys who were with Jacky’s team wants to be in our team and I assumed them that they had a spot, and they still have a spot in our team. Within two or three weeks, we had a building, we had the vans, we had a team. I think at the end of the season, we just needed to find one mechanic.

MXLarge: Starting a team is expensive and obviously support from the factory makes that easier and you need a lot of sponsors, and I know Rasmus is good in that type of thing. I wanted to ask you a question, because I live in The Netherlands and if there is one thing I know, the Dutch are very loyal people, but in this current situation with KTM, their financially problems, how do you sit in that, when you are a loyal person?

Henekkens: There is so much going on in Austria, that even we don’t get the latest details, because if changes every day. In my opinion, it is going in the right direction, Mr Pierer steps down, the new CEO is in place, which makes sense. Mr Pierer is still a majority shareholder, so not many changes. I think all together, everything is fine. Are we certain there will be KTM after the 25th of February, I don’t know. I think so, but I do not know.

MXlarge: There were a lot of rumours last year, around the middle of the season, about your team losing Husqvarna and I remember speaking to Rasmus and he mentioned how it was difficult for the team to concentrate, because the rumours caused some stress within the team. So much information in the media that was incorrect and that made him a bit angry and disappointed with the media. What was the true story from that period and Husqvarna leaving MXGP?

Henekkens: I can tell you. It wasn’t my decision. I was involved with Husqvarna since day one and we like the brand. The bikes look nice, and everything is how it should be. Somebody in Austria made or pushed for a decision that GasGas and Husqvarna would be deletes from MXGP and in my opinion, I didn’t understand it. If you want to go urban and e-mobility, then you need urban bikes, you need to have e-mobility bikes. I am Dutch and I am very clear minded, open minded, I could not see it, so I asked, why is it, Pit (Beirer) agreed with me, he also didn’t understand it, but its coming from the board and we have to do it. I told Pit, it isn’t that I don’t disagree with it, but I don’t understand it. So, we were going KTM and the Friday, before Loket, we were going to announce, that we are now KTM and not Husqvarna. We were not really unhappy, but also not happy about it. Then, on Thursday evening, we got a small message, the press release is postponed. I already knew what was going to happen, but Rasmus was a little upset and he wanted to know what was going on. He started calling people and I said, just wait. Then, the Friday, Pit called me and said, listen, we want to sell a lot of Husqvarna’s, but if we do not promote the brand in sport, like Billy Bolt and Nestaan Husqvarna, it is complicated to sell them. So, then we stayed Husqvarna. In my opinion, if you stop producing Husqvarna’s, not everyone will buy a KTM.

Part Two - Next Week

Bavo Swijgers images