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Welcome on the career section
My name is Henk Bloemert and I was born in Staphorst in 1955.
About 1974 the Husqvarna dealer in Staphorst introduced me to motorcycle racing. My international career started in 1974 as well.
In the end of 1974 I achieved a twelfth place. This was enough to be allowed to race with the seniors the next season. Then the real action started. We trained even more and in a much more goal-oriented way, all this under good coaching. I thought that this could not be too difficult and I would be able to do it right away. What a rude awakening. In the first Dutch championships Stef van de Sluis and Jo Lammers put me one and a half rounds behind and I ended up on the 28th place. Some people already said: "Henk, in a year you will be junior again." I wouldn't take that and so I worked even harder and just managed to remain senior. In 1976 it all went much better, but I was still having problems with the starts. However, thanks to the good condition that I had built up in the meantime and my will power I mostly ended up in the top ten. At the end of the season I was among the best twelve in the Netherlands and received an H-number. I have had this H-number for a total of 10 years now with some breaks due to injuries. With this number I was allowed to race at the international level (GP). I have done various GP races abroad, but I had difficulty in qualifying myself on hard racetracks. The problems usually arose at differences in altitudes. I generally managed to qualify for the Dutch and Belgian Grand Prix, though. During the GP for 250 cc on 22 April 1979 in Halle I beat among others 'long Jack van Veldhoven' and Pierre Karsmakers from the United States of America, Kees van de Ven and Benny Wilken. In the Dutch championships I performed better and better and in the meantime I had also gained support from Veen Kreitler + Importer Husqvarna Netherlands, with Jan de Vries (former world champion 50 cc road race) as mechanic. A nice incident during a GP in Belgium was that suddenly there was a large tree standing in my way and I lost my consciousness. A doctor came and wanted to tell me in Flemish what was going on and although we thought that the Flemish language is much like ours, we unfortunately had a bit of a communication problem. We went back to the Netherlands and before Eindhoven I was really in bad shape. I was short of breath and sweat was pouring down my face. My coach insisted that I went to the hospital and when I arrived there it appeared that many things were wrong. A pneumothorax and three ribs through the lung. Soon I was on the intensive care. This was a good thing as afterwards the doctor was astonished that I had driven all the way from Belgium to Eindhoven. I owed this to my good condition. Six weeks later I was riding my motorbike again.
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At the age of 26 (this was in 1983) I switched to the 500 cc. Here I reached the international level as well. With men such as Gerard Rond, Kees van der Ven, Benny Wilken, Toon Karsmakers, Frans Sigmans, etc. This period also had its ups and downs.
In 1984 I rode various enduros with as highlight the World Championship in Assen. I was in the gold section up to the day before the last, but unfortunately in the night before the last day so much rain fell that the track was changed. All teams were informed on this, except for Ben van Erp of the Husqvarna team. This resulted in four penalty points for me and I just missed the gold and won silver, occupying the eighth place instead of the fifth.
Apart from the various GPs and enduros, I also participated in the Veronica beach race in Scheveningen several times. Here I once had a front start and after one round I fell very hard on the washboard, which I had not noticed. With this fall I became an item in the national newspapers as they thought I was buried there on the spot. Fortunately, this turned out better than expected. Afterwards a team of a television programme of Veronica called to ask whether I was prepared to come and give an explanation during a live broadcast before all Dutch people. No one could understand how I had survived this.
At the age of thirty I quit motorcycle racing. Over and out, I thought. Until a sponsor came with a motorbike. As a hobby I started racing at the national level and became champion once more. Now motorcycle racing is for me a thing of the past, but I still spend lots of time on the Husqvarna motorbike.
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Nowadays I continue this hobby, or passion you might even call it, by collecting Husqvarna motorbikes and everything that has something to do with Husqvarna motorbikes (Twin Shocks). I collect among other things parts, books, magazines, T-shirts, stickers, etc. Too much to mention here.
If you have anything related to Husqvarna motorbikes (Twin Shocks) and you want to get rid of it, you can reach me in several ways:
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Following below, a few photo's of Henk Bloemert's
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