Clean sweep for Charlie Heyman as SJP Moto start MXGB season with podiums
By Press Release on 16th Mar 22
British Motocross Championship Culham Reece Jones Charlie Heyman
Archie Jay Girdham (SW85), Josh Vail (BW85), Reece Jones and Charlie Heyman (Youth 125cc), and Jayden Haigh (Youth 250cc) are the young riders representing SJP Moto in the 2022 season and the team kicked off the Revo ACU British Motocross Championship Fuelled by Gulf Race Fuels at the hillside venue of Culham in fine style.
Saturday started with the qualifying sessions for each class, in the SW85 class Archie was second fastest, in the BW85 class Josh finished the session third fastest, while in the 125cc class Charlie topped the timesheets with Reece fifth fastest, and in the 250cc class, Jayden was second fastest.
Going into the Saturday races, Archie rode a great opening moto after coming from around the top 10 on the opening lap, to finishing in second place at the flag. In the second moto, Archie was looking for another good moto and after starting well the youngster was inside the top three before dropping to fourth and recovering to third at the finish. The third moto of the day wasnt run due to a delay in the schedule, the final race was postponed until later in the year.
Josh Vail started the opening race around the top 10 and quickly moved his way up to third place at the finish. In the second race of the day, Josh had another good start and rode a solid race to claim a third-place finish once again. Joshs third race also wasnt run due to the delays.
Josh Vail
In the 125cc class, Charlie and Reece had two races on Saturday. The opening race couldnt have started any better with Charlie and Reece running in P1 and P2 on the opening lap, unfortunately, Reece suffered a mistake earlier on and pushed hard to recover to a great seventh place at the finish. Meanwhile, Charlie rode a great moto to take the opening race win of the season taking victory by over 15 seconds.
The second race for the 125cc saw Charlie claim another superb start to finish race win, taking the race win by over 35 seconds and never came under pressure from the rest of the field. Reece again rode another solid race to claim a seventh-place finish.
Jaydens two 250cc class races saw the youngster suffer some bad luck in both races and finished the opening moto in 17th place after a big crash on the opening lap. After remounting, Jayden had to pit to straighten the bike before re-joining the race. Still in a lot of pain, Jayden headed out on track for the second moto and rode a steady moto to claim 13th after another tough race. Unfortunately, the injury to his back would keep him out of the races on Sunday.
Sunday morning saw Archie compete in his final moto of the weekend and nearly claim the holeshot. He challenged at the front all race long to claim third in the moto and third overall on the weekend.
In the Big Wheel 85cc class, Josh rode another solid moto after starting inside the top five and moving his way up to fourth on the second lap, where he would remain for the rest of the race. Joshs three solid results gave him a well-deserved third overall to start the season.
Reece Jones
In the 125cc class both Charlie and Reece had two races to complete on Sunday and in the opening moto, Charlie came from a top-10 start, just ahead of team-mate Reece. Charlie quickly moved forward into the lead by lap three and went on to take the race win by 14 seconds. Reece rode a solid race to claim a seventh-place finish.
In the final race of the weekend, Charlie excelled in a dominant wire-to-wire race win (by nearly 20 seconds) and claimed a perfect weekend of four race wins. Unfortunately, Reece suffered a heavy crash early in the moto that damaged the bike and dropped him to ninth overall.
Team manager Leighton Haigh: "Its been a really good first round for the team apart from Jayden who was second fastest in qualifying and then suffered a first-lap crash and picked up a back injury. Although he tried in the second race, he was unable to complete the weekend.
"Reece had three great rides to claim seventh place in each race, unfortunately, he suffered a big crash in the last moto and couldnt finish, but was uninjured.
"Charlie was faultless all weekend and provided a masterclass on the 125cc taking pole and four race wins.
Archie Jay Girdham
"Archie had a good solid weekend after only getting back on a bike on Thursday after four weeks of no riding due to his broken collarbone. So to get third overall was great. Josh Vail also rode great all weekend to claim third overall, so we cant complain about how the weekend went."
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