Alex has raced motorcycles for almost his entire life. He has grown up with them in the family and has always been on one. I guess you could say, Alex was born with motorcycles in his blood.

Before Alex and his brother, Damian, and sister, Desiree, were born,  Alex’s mother (Annette) and father (Shane) lived in a place in Sydney Australia called St Clair. Shane, being a young “rev head”, spent a lot of his life hotting up cars and bikes to race around the streets of Sydney with his friends. After having been booked many times in his younger days for speeding and losing his license quite a few times too, Shane had to work out a way he could race around on a motorbike at high speeds and not get booked for it. Racing wasn’t really an option because he just couldn’t afford it on a railway fitter & Turner’s wage, so he came up with a flawless idea. Why not join the ranks of his arch enemy, the Police! The idea followed the premise, “if you can’t beat them, join them!”

Shane the cop

As a young couple, Annette and Shane had purchased their first home in St Clair. Annette was 18 and Shane was 20. Annette worked in Real Estate and Shane raced around on a motorcycle all day long playing cops and robbers in the heart of Sydney city. They got married when Annette turned 21, and two years later, on 19th October, 1982, their first child, Damian Shane Cudlin came into the world.

Damian ruled the roost as the baby boy of the house for 3 years,  until Shane and Annette had their second child.  Desiree Annette Cudlin, a beautiful baby girl, was born on the 27th June, 1985. There must have been something in the water that year,  because not long after Desiree was born, Annette would again fall pregnant. Alexander Kenneth Josef Cudlin, their third child and second son, was born on the 8th August, 1986. In the space of 4 years, the tiny little household in St Clair was now a full house, with 3 bubbling children running around. One of the tricks that Shane and Annette would use to get the boys to sleep, was to sit them on a baby seat on the back of Shane’s motorcycle and take them for a couple of quick laps around the block. Even back then, the boys both loved the throb of the motorcycle engine, Desi preferred cuddling up to her mama.

About a year after Alex was born, Shane and Annette decided they were over the hustle and bustle of the city, and thought it would be a better life for the kids if they were to move to the country to a little town called Taree. Taree was situated  around 4 hours from St Clair, on the mid north coast of NSW,  and was really the best of country and coastal life. It was a place where Shane and Annette had always wanted to live. You see,  before they knew each other, Annette’s family would travel a just a bit further north for their annual family holidays. When Shane and Annette started going out in their teens, she introduced Shane to the area, and they both dreamed of living in the surrounding area one day.

Taree was only a small place then. It didn’t have a K Mart or a Pizza Hut. McDonalds was nowhere to be seen, and it was perfectly located, only 4 hours from Sydney, with mountains to the west and rolling ocean waves and beautiful beaches only 5 minutes away in a little village called Old Bar. Shane and Annette searched for days to find a nice house for the new family to start their country life in and came across a farm house on 11 acres. The house was badly run down, with an old fuel stove the only source of hot water and peeling wallpaper in every room, but Shane and Annette fell in love with the isolation of the farm and decided to buy the it. It was far enough away from town to be secluded, close enough to be able to pop in and out when you ran out of milk, and it was really close to the beach.  The other thing that swayed the place in Shane’s favour was the fact that it was almost straight across the road from the local motorcycle track.

L_R Desiree,Alex,Damian

Damo,Al,Desi... Super Heroes

At first the idea was to lead a simple life, filled with home grown vegetables and home made bread. The kids had horses and ducks and chooks, rabbits and budgies, gobbling turkeys and guinea fowl. For a little while it was lovely,  just listening to the sounds of nature in the backyard, with the kookaburras singing their familiar song each morning. But then on Damian’s 7th birthday, the silence would be forever broken, when he was presented with a brand new Yamaha PW50.

Damo(pilot) Alex(swinger) never liked riding horses!

Damian tore around the farm,  making it a nightmare for the 3 horses that also shared the paddocks. Desiree and Alex had lots of fun running behind Damian while he “chucked wheelies" and flung mud in their faces. After a few months of riding the PW, Shane decided that it might be fun for Damian to race across the road at the local flat track circuit.  It didn’t take long before Damian was hooked on racing and moved up to a bigger bike. His next bike was a more powerful, 2nd hand Suzuki DS80, and it was also the only bike the family could afford.

Come on Damian!

Shane and Annette decided to hand the PW50 down to Desiree and  Alex, who were always a tag team, but Desi never really liked the motorbike. She preferred to be inside with her Mum following more girlie pursuits. She had a little pony called Sonya that she rode a bit around the yard. So the PW50 was all Alex’s. . Only 5 years of age, Alex jumped on the 50cc and loved racing around the farm chasing his big brother Damian up and over the home made jumps and burms. Soon, Alex was having a go at the race track across the road too.

Racing around the country

The trend had begun,  and from that point on Damian and Alex’s mind's were set. Their sole passion in life was to race motorcycles. Shane and Annette, who were both pretty hard workers,  decided it really was a sport the kids were passionate about and so they both put as much time and effort into helping the boys as they could.

The boys went from local club racing, to racing all over the state of NSW and also interstate, mainly in Victoria and Queensland, weekend after weekend entering races.  The family would load up their caravan late Friday night and travel wherever the next state round was held,  to watch Damian and Alex race their motorcycles. They towed a caravan around because they couldn't afford accommodation near the tracks, and there were many times that they bathed out of an Esky full of warm water because their were no showering facilities at the track. Eventually they upgraded the caravan to a 22 foot long model that included a hot water shower!

After many years of racing, the boys were starting to get really serious and were starting to get results. They were racing in motorcross and dirt track, and began entering the Australian Titles in both disciplines. Because the races were getting more serious the races were getting further and further to travel to. Shane and Annette could see that the kids were away more and more from school, and this was frowned on by the local school, so they decided to do what a lot of people ridiculed them for doing. They decided to pull the three kids out of school and "home school" them, teaching them their school work whilst on the road.

Alex and Damian would race day in day out. It began to take over their lives. They would do 2 hours of schooling a day then practice on the farm for hours on their bikes, whilst  Desiree learned gymnastics and tennis. Damian went on to win a number of Australian and State Titles in Dirt Track and Alex won both motocross and dirt track titles.

It was about this time that Shane and Annette decided to buy a small motorcycle shop in Tuncurry, about 20 minutes south of Taree. Both boys began working in the shop (Damian was 13 and Alex was 9), learning everything they could about motorcycles, including how to service them and sell them! In 1996 a new race series started up in Australia for 14 to 16 year olds. It was called the Moriwaki 80cc road race series.

Damian was old enough to enter the series and both the boys really wanted to go Road Racing and leave racing on the dirt behind, so Shane and Annette bought Damian a brand new 80cc Moriwaki race bike. Damian entered the series that year and his first road race was at Wakefield Park in Goulbourn. Damian qualified 5th but really got a baptism of fire in his first race, racing the whole race battling for 3rd position,  only to crash on the last corner. Damian went on to race the rest of 80cc Moriwaki series and was very successful at it. Damian raced in the series until he turned 16 , and then moved into the senior divisions.

It was now Alex's turn. Alex rode Damians bike for a few years before he would enter his first road race in Victoria at the Broadford raceway. Alex qualified 4th for the race, with Damian sitting on the side lines to urge his brother on. Alex took off from the line and quickly jumped into the lead. For the next 10 laps Alex would battle with the other riders for a podium position. Alex came across the line to finish his first ever road race in 1st position. Alex was instantly hooked with road racing and decided that day to give the dirt bikes away altogether and concentrate on Road Racing.

Shane and Annette had been building up the bike shop, and moved from Tuncurry into a much bigger premises in Taree, and became the local Yamaha dealer. It was during this time that Damian was involved in a crash at Eastern Creek that nearly ended his racing career permanently. Damian was hit from behind by another rider in Turn 2 at Eastern Creek in the warm up lap and was rushed to hospital with suspected pelvic and back injuries. It turned out that he had severely broken his back with 4 crushed vertebrae and a major dislocation of the spine, and there was a big possibility that he may not be able to walk without a massive back operation being carried out. There was a huge risk that he would become a paraplegic, even with the operation, as the break was only a 1-2 mm from severing his spinal chord. The operation would mean that Damian would have two nine inch rod place in each side of his spine and he would not even be able to swing a golf club, let alone race a motorcycle. Shane and Annette had some massive decisions to make.

This was a very black period for the family, because on the exact same weekend that Damian broke his back, Annette's father passed away, suffering from a massive heart attack whilst traveling on a train from Sydney to the Blue Mountains. The family was coping with a massive amount of grief and worry. It was also a time of much soul searching. What if Damian couldn't race again? Should Alex continue to do so? Even if they got through this, was it worth the risk to put the boys in so much danger? Shane and Annette decided that this was a question and a decision that only the boys could make for themselves. Damian was an adult, and Alex was on the brink of adulthood. In the meantime, they decided that Damian wouldn't have the operation that the doctors were pushing for, but would lay in the hospital for 8 weeks flat on his back, and let nature do it's work. At the end of the 8 week period, Damian's back had fused itself back together naturally, and with another 8 weeks in a body cast, he was able to bend over and touch his toes without any pain whatsoever. He would be able to walk, run and race if he wanted to.

Both boys decided they were ready to race again. This is what they wanted and this is what they were going to do. They knew the risks involved, but their love of the sport was too strong. As soon as Damian was better, he headed off overseas to see if he could get himself a ride. Alex continued racing  the 80cc Moriwaki until he was also 16 years old,  before he would move into the senior ranks. For a 16 year old, racing with the seniors was a daunting task - you were now in the big boys league. The guys there didn’t give an inch, and the racing was tough. Seniors was the final frontier!

Alex was a little unfortunate as his 16th birthday didn't fall until August, which  meant that almost the whole year of the Championship was over before he turned 16 and was officially able to enter the competition. Shane decided that Alex should wait until the following year, and enter his first senior Championship in 2003. Alex's Mum & Dad Alex got him a Yamaha R6 to race in the 600cc class, in the Australian  and Formula Xtreme Superstock Championship.

Alex’s first race was at Eastern Creek in Sydney and he qualified 3rd. It happened to be the Australian titles and considering this was Alex's very first race against the big boys,  it was a pretty good start. Alex took off from the line and was sitting in 3rd position until turn 2,  when a senior rider came through and knocked Alex off the bike and out of the race. That was a rude awakening for Alex. He learned fast that he wasn’t going to get cut any slack from the more seasoned racers just because he was the new kid on the block and only 16 years old.

Alex then lined up on the grid for Race 2, ready for a fight. And fight is what he did. Alex took off from the line and rode with a steely determination to cross the line in 1st position.  It was the perfect way to bounce back and to show the big boys that he was going to be a force to be reckoned with. Alex then went on to race one of the best years of his brand new career.

9 consecutive 1st place finishes in Formula Xtreme Superstock Series.

17 consecutive podium finishes in Formula Xtreme Superstock Series.

Qualified in pole position on 3 consecutive occasions in Australian Superstock Cup.

10 podium finishes from 13 races Australian Superstock Cup.

Won 6 of the last 7 races in the Australian Superstock Cup.

1st Outright - Formula Xtreme Superstock Series.

2nd Outright – Australian Superstock Championship.

1st Outright – NSW State Titles – Superstock Cup.

Towards the end of 2003,  Shane decided that Alex was ready to try out a superbike, and entered him in  some races on the bigger,  more aggressive 1000cc motorcycle.

 Alex raced it for only 2 rounds and impressed everyone with his results.

1st Outright – Australasian Formula Xtreme Championship – Formula Oz

3rd Outright – Australasian Formula Xtreme Championship – Formula X Unlimited

After having such a successful year in 2003 Alex was awarded for his efforts with a good deal from Yamaha Australia to race in the Supersport Championships,  and was also asked to race in China in the 600cc Supersport Championships for Fuchs Silkolene Extreme team. Alex took both offers and raced in China for one round, and raced in the Supersport championships in Australia.

Racing in China

In 2004, during one of the Supersport rounds, Alex had an extremely bad crash, which resulted in a severely broken arm, where he almost lost his hand due to the severity of the break. He was out of racing for almost the whole season, while his wrist and arm healed. At this stage,  Damian was racing overseas in the World Endurance Championships and was loving it. He kept saying that Alex should come over and see whether he could get a ride himself. Alex decided to race in Australia for the 2005 season and see if he could win the Australian Supersport Championships. but at Round 2 Alex had another big crash . This time his collarbone was broken in 4 places, and again, Alex was on the sidelines for the rest of the season while the collarbone, which had to be plated, was repaired. In the meantime, the bike shop in Taree was growing, and was now the local Yamaha, Kawasaki and Suzuki dealership. Both boys worked in the dealership - Damian as a salesman when he was at home, and Alex as a mechanic. At the end of 2005 Alex decided to travel over to Italy and see his brother race in the final round of the World Endurance championships. He met a number of teams and had talks with a few, who were impressed with Alex's past racing results in Australia, and he was asked to test for Team Diablo 666,  Kawasaki,  in Spain. Alex tested for them and they signed Alex up that weekend. In 2006 it was Alex’s first season racing in the World Endurance Championships. Being his first year, he had a lot to learn about racing on new circuits in Europe, and racing for such long periods throughout the races. 2006 was a successful year for Alex, as he finished 7th in the World Endurance Championships and won the inaugural World Endurance Championship  Rookie Of The Year Award".

World Endurance Rookie Of The Year

Meanwhile,  whilst Alex and Damian were racing around the World, their sister Desiree had been busy as well.  She had met and fallen in love with a guy from Taree,  who just happened to own the other motorcycle shop in town - the opposition to Annette and Shane's bike shop in Taree! The dreaded Honda dealer!

Never taking anything slowly in this racing family, by the end of 2006, Desiree had married Glen Kelleher (the Honda Dealer)  and bought a home in Taree. Glen is also mad on motorcycles, and was a successful road racer in his own right, winning Australian Championships and most recently winning the Barry Sheen Trophy at Eastern Creek. His business dealings mean that he can't really pursue racing the way he would love to, but he still has a bit of a go every now and then.

So now we are up to date with how it all started with Alex and his mad racing family.

To say that motorcycles is in his blood is an understatement!