SA teen racer Ruché Moodley chases Moto3 glory as he follows in his father’s tracks

Young South African Moto3 racer Ruché Moodley finished 13th in the Grand Prix of Qatar on 11 April. That means that in his maiden Moto3 season, the 18-year-old from Gqeberha has earned points in three out of the first four races this season.

His 11th place in Thailand in March is his highest finish so far, with 18 more races to come in the season, stretching across Europe, Asia and Australia.

Moodley’s goal is to become a MotoGP champion and race against the world’s best, which includes South Africa’s Brad Binder.

Binder, who is 11 years older than Moodley and has been racing in MotoGP for the past five years, is a big inspiration for him. But Moodley also has someone else to emulate.

His father, Arushen Moodley, was the South African Superbike champion in 2007 and won two titles in the United Arab Emirates in 2009 and 2010.

And when Moodley Snr bought his son a mini dirt bike as a five-year-old, he sowed the seeds of a successful career.

“Seeing [my dad] race and spending so much time at the track when I was young, made me want to just go on a bike, because you’re … there and you see what’s happening,” Moodley Jnr told Daily Maverick.

Family relations

The Moodleys and Binders are family friends. They got to know each other through the sport and live close to each other in Spain, to where the Moodleys relocated three years ago.

So while his father remains a big inspiration, seeing Brad and Darryn Binder (who races in Moto2) achieve their goals on the big stage further made Moodley believe his dreams could become reality.

“They … inspired me to get there one day, and also since I have known them from such a young age, they’ve taught me so many things.”

“When we moved to Spain, we were staying about 10 minutes from where they stay,” said Moodley. “So it was quite easy to just go cycling together some days, but … since they’ve moved [from Alicante] to Andorra, we don’t see them as much. But we always see them during race weekends.”

Road to the top

Moodley has been competing on the professional circuit since he was 14, when his parents decided to homeschool him.

In 2022, he competed in the Red Bull Rookies Cup, which he rates as one of the highlights of his career.

He jumped from a 19th overall finish that year to ninth the following year, which included a podium finish at Le Mans.

But before Moodley ended up where he is now in Moto3, a serious accident almost put paid to his dreams.

“I was just racing in South Africa and we got one opportunity to do a test with an Italian team,” said Moodley.

“But the day before I was supposed to leave, I broke my femur and my hip and fractured my skull. It was quite a big one and I was off for about three months, but when I recovered, they still remembered me and then we got the chance to go do a race in Barcelona and from there we got here.”

At 18, the world is Moodley’s oyster as he looks to keep improving in his first Moto3 season. The young racer has dealt with injuries and relocating to the other side of the world with a maturity that belies his age.

“I started racing in the European Talent Cup when I was about 13. Then you kind of realise that it’s very professional,” said Moodley.

“When you get off the bike, your job’s not done. You’re not just riding the bike, you have to check all the telemetry, all the data and improve in every corner, every second trying to get better.

“You’re working on the bikes just when the race weekend’s finished. You go back home and you’re back on the bicycle [for cardiovascular workouts], back at the track, it’s just … every day working.

“The sacrifice is massive because there’s nothing else you can focus on. You lose a lot of friends because they ask you if they want to go do normal things [and] you have to say no, you’re busy.

“So it very quickly becomes everything.”

But the young racer wouldn’t want it any other way in his single-minded quest to become a world champion. DM