Let’s hear it for the Brit GP

The mighty four-day MXGP festival happened and played host to no fewer than 10 classes, including four European and an Amateur class.

 

What is indisputable is that no fewer than 338 riders got to race round the Matterley track which is, as Youthstream say, one of the most spectator friendly tracks on the GP schedule.

 

What could be disputable is the claimed crowd of 35,000 but as I long since gave up believing official crowd figures I leave that to yourselves to accept or discard. 

 

I do know I have been part of a genuine 90,000 (yes, I counted them all myself!) crowd at Camp Nou in Barcelona – and that does take some believing. That amount of people takes up an enormous amount of space. Which is how I personally work out my own crowd estimates...

 

It must have taken an enormous amount of faith to even contemplate running such a monster event, especially given the ‘summer' Britain has suffered with many areas  enjoying virtual constant rain.

 

With so many classes to cater for some of us genuinely feared for the event as with so many classes practising, qualifying and racing had it been constantly wet the track would surely have become unrideable.

 

Whatever, the Gods declared that sunshine should rule and fortune favoured the brave.

 

Once again, hats off to the bravest promotion ever in motocross. 

 

And the fans even got to celebrate Tommy Searle's momentous double British win. 

 

There's not many riders get to savour that kind of glory. 

 

It was British motocross's own little Olympic moment, up there with Mo Farah and Jess Ennis in what is turning out to be a pretty memorable year of sport.

 

The only downside of the GP was the mini spate of motorcycle thefts perpetrated by people who are, sadly and unbelievably, inside our sport. 

 

I truly hope the thieves are caught, named and shamed.

 

And just to show how lucky the GP was with the weather, while the Matterley crowds basked in sunshine, more northerly based events like the Kendal Classic club's Nostalgia weekend suffered three days of almost incessant rain.

 

The Lakes road bike run on Friday was wet, wet, wet, the trials riders on Saturday got wet again and those present at the scramble on Sunday chose to stoically ignore the constant downpour.

 

Which is why the British GP isn't in the north I guess...