In Ramon Times
By TMX Archives on 19th Dec 07
YOU all know the tale about the tortoise and the hare. Well, Steve Ramon is no tortoise, indeed Josh Coppins is no hare, but it does ring a bell in regards to the 2007 World MX1 Championship season.
The Kiwi set off like a hare in the title chase, but it wasn't overconfidence that cost him, rather a flint, which severed his rear brake line.
Steve Ramon took some stick for winning the title without a single GP win – indeed the last time he stood atop a GP podium was May 2003 – but the Belgian was riding with his wrists strapped up through the final third of the series, and he did run down Josh for one of his two moto wins mid-summer. It was a feat which Coppins never had to accomplish as the Suzuki never gated all year. Steve's average first lap position was 11th, so give credit where it is due because no champion has ever come from that far back before.
Amazingly, when one considers that Coppins dominated the first half of the series, there were no less than seven different GP winners, while a further four rider won motos and Tanel Leok – the king of qualifying – never won either. After the recent one-man shows of Stefan Everts, that is surely refreshing!
Taking stock of the UK balance, Billy MacKenzie switched class and won, where else, in Japan, the CAS mercenaries Ken De Dycker and Mike Brown each took a moto, the Belgian converting his victory into an overall win too, but James Noble, having started the season off in a vivid streak of controlled aggression, tailed off mid-summer to settle into a rut of tenth and eleventh places which would again leave him short of a single-digit ranking, while Gordon Crockard's final GP campaign was, bar one momentous ride in the rain at Teutschenthal, a bitter disappointment. One bright light on the horizon, and a rivalry which could also spur ‘Nobby' on to better things in 2008, was the form shown during his occasional rides by fellow northerner Brad Anderson, whose late-developer efforts have also earned him a full GP ride next summer.
for full story results and pictures see T+MX News, Friday, December 21, 2007