Late changes for the Nations
By TMX Archives on 25th Sep 08
ANTHONY Boissiere's third place moto finish at the Faenza GP sealed his right to the MX2 berth for France, the HDI KTM runner already favourite over Xavier Boog as replacement for Steven Frossard out with a broken leg as he has regularly put up a good show against the 450s in the Superfinal at the French championships.Aigar Leok is more than doubtful for Estonia after breaking a collarbone but his replacement is not yet known, and Scotty Colomb is a last minute replacement for Darryl Hurley, who huret himself last week in a training crash. Incidentally NZ's team manager will also not travel ad the duties will be taken up by Neil Flockhart. What ? Another Scot !
France won the Euro Nations for B teams at Sevlievo in Bulgaria on Sunday. It was a close thing with Italy after Matteo Bonini won both his races, but Euro champ Valentin Teillet was best MX2 rider in both his races and Gregory Aranda only lost to Bonini. A fourth place first time out for Loic Rombaut was enough to clinch it for the French by a point as Alessandro Lupino only took a single fifth place and MX3 world number two Cristian Beggi could not improve on 3-4 motos, though there was still a chance for the Italians right to the final lap of racing as a pass on third-placed Michael Michel would haven given it to the Italians on the tie-break.
Michek, Martin Zerava and Petr Smitka took the Czechs to third, a long way ahead of Germany for whom Ken Roczen took a 6th in race one; it was at Sevlievo that the 14-year-old defeated Max Anstie for the 2007 World 85cc crown and he will also make his GP debut there next May, a few days after his 15th birthday.
Some 16 nations contested the event, but the quality was low, Turkey and Cyprus proving particularly slow as Holland was the only west European nation not to make the top four annd there was not a single representative from Scandinavia or the Baltic other than the Danes who finished fifth ahead of Slovenia.
Nikolaj Larsen will not race in MVRD colours next year after all. The Danish federation, who will be subsidising his GP campaign, have decided to link with the Dutch Beuersfoon squad instead.
Hawkstone was actually Zach Osborne's second race of the weekend as the 18-year-old had contested the first round of the European SX series on Friday and finished a close second to Benjamin Coisy.
The 23-year-old Frenchman, for many years fast but injury-suspect, also won the second night in Osborne's absence to lead the series from Fabien Izoird and Stephane Demartis. Osborne apart, the entire top ten at Milan was French.
Arnaud Tonus, who won the Ricky Carmichael Trophy as youngest competitor ar the 2007 Nations, will race alongside Anthony Boissiere in the factory-supported French HDI KTM MX2 team next year. The youngster also clinched the Swiss MX2 title on Sunday.
Not quite sure if we missed it or not, but, if anyone is interested, Sven Breugelmans won his second MX3 world title in Germany last week.
Nostalgia!
DO you remember the last British win in the Nations? Or were you not even born? Whatever, that great day in September 1994 at Roggenburg/ Switzerland went down in the annals of history, and at the weekend you have the chance to relive the glory.
Motovision are re-releasing the tape of Britain's great win by Kurt Nicoll, Paul Malin and Rob Herring (pictured below) on DVD (comerto think of it, it's not a re-release as DVD didn't even exist them, so anyone who still has the tape at home has to dig out the VHS to watch it) and it will be on sale for £11.95 at the St Blazey stand at the weekend. So get down there quick for a piece of real history, not like all that crappy school stuff with 1066 and all that !