Mac rules Torrid Torrington
By TMX Archives on 16th Apr 08
STEPHEN Sword is officially back! Almost two years to the day since he last climbed atop the podium at a round of the Maxxis British Motocross Championship, the Molson Kawasaki mounted Scot returned to the top step of the rostrum with a scintillating performance at round three of the series at a very wet Torrington.
Heavy rain had turned the Devon circuit into something closer to the Somme than a motocross track for much of the day, but the deeply rutted and incredibly technical challenge of racing on the circuit did not deter the MX2 points leader as he cruised to a dominant win in the opening moto before putting on the performance of the day with a gutsy ride back through the pack to a superb third in moto two after being taken down in a second lap collision with reigning champ Mike Brown and being forced to fight through from almost dead last.The ride was enough to secure Sword the overall from second moto winner Shaun Simpson on the KTM UK, who himself took a dive in the opener and had to race through the pack to fourth, and Suso Suzuki's Jason Dougan who got his season back on more familiar territory after his devastating double DNF at the season opener with a 5-2 scorecard.
The Billy MacKenzie show continued at an accelerated rate in MX1 and the CAS Honda man made a mockery of the conditions and his competition as he again raced to another pair of easy wins to maintain his 100 per cent winning streak, crossing the line a huge one minute-twenty clear in the days final moto and leaving fans with the real prospect that he will go through the season unbeaten.
Behind MacKenzie though the MX1 class threw up some surprising results with Molson Kawasaki's Tom Church landing his first career MX1 podium after a brace of third places, while MotoExtreme Kawasaki's veteran Mark Hucklebridge was superb all day to outclass Church for a fantastic second place in the second moto and mount the podium in third overall on the day he announced his retirement from racing at the end of the season.
Mark Jones was again on top-form, although a big moto two crash dropped him off the podium, but the ARB Tuning Kawasaki rider could be content with moving up to joint second in the championship standings with Church as Swift Suzuki's Brad Anderson suffered a heavy fall in the opener and was a no-show in heat two. In fact it was bad day injury-wise for the Swift squad as the teams MX2 leader Pascal Leuret suffered a dislocated shoulder on the opening lap of the first heat and severely dented his championship and GP hopes.
It was tough day in general for all involved though with less than great organisation by ACU Events Ltd racing didn't finish until nearly 7pm and the suitability of Torrington as British championship venue should really be called into question, but again the riders made it and with more standout performances for MX2 young-guns such as Marcus Norlen and Joe Dark there were plenty of on-track positives to take from the day.
WITH UTag Yamaha's Kenneth Gundersen out for the season with a knee injury, Anderson carrying an ankle problem from the GP opener the previous weekend, and James Noble not 100 per cent after his recent bout of pneumonia the potential for someone to step-up and challenge MacKenzie was already diminished, but after the slop-fest that was qualifying it was again clear that no-one was going to get close; he was almost nine seconds faster than Anderson and Jordan Rose!
The track was still pretty sodden by the time the first MX1 moto rolled around and as expected MacKenzie hit the front from the off, the awesome power of the CAS Honda evident on the uphill.
Mark Jones made the most of his good start and went with MacKenzie, and by the time the pack had sorted themselves on the opening lap, the pair had already opened up a gap over Anderson, Jamie Law, Noble Church and Rose.
For the opening three laps Jones tried in vain to hang onto the coat-tails of MacKenzie but is was just not possible, and as the Scot began to crept away Jones hit the deck in one of the endless, treacherous ruts and dropped back to seventh.
Jones though was the man of the race and set about working his way back past his rivals. Efficient and effective, he was back past Hucklebridge and Rose for fifth within two laps, and passed both Noble and Church in a well executed move another couple of circuits later. Second place Anderson was 16 seconds ahead by this point but Jones put is head down, charged, and reeled him in.
The pass looked imminent two laps from home, but it didn't need to be as Anderson lost it on the slick downhill coming into the re-routed third turn and fell heavily, lying motionless on his bike for a few minutes before remounting and grittily riding a final lap to register a finish of tenth given how far he had lapped into the field.
While all this was going on, MacKenzie has cruised away effortlessly to rack-up a 41 second winning margin with Church re-passing Noble to claim third with Hucklebridge fifth, Mark Eastwood wringing the neck out of his CR250 two-stroke to take sixth from Danny Smyth with Rose eighth, Wayne Smith ninth and Anderson credited with tenth.
With the main line of the track almost virtually dry and much more suited to racing, MacKenzie was even more rampant in moto two and was on another level altogether. Grabbing the holeshot again he was out of sight of the chasing pack by the end of the opening lap and frankly embarrassed the rest with his 1:21 winning margin and a fastest lap a full 10.5 seconds better than anyone else could manage.
Jordan Rose held second for five laps, but all eyes were on the battle between Church and Hucklebridge. Together from the word go, Church held the early advantage but Hucklebridge was in his best for a long time and was unrelenting, eventually using his experience and racecraft to make a pass on lap eight and open up a seven
BRITISH MX1 MOTOCROSS CHAMPS
Rd 3 Waggadon Farm, Torrington, Devon
(Torridge & DMCC)
1 Billy MacKenzie (CAS Honda) 25 + 25 = 50
2 Tom Church (Molson Kawasaki) 20 + 20 = 40
3 Mark Hucklebridge (Motoxtreme Kawasaki) 16 + 22 = 38
4 Mark Jones (Kawasaki) 22 + 14 = 36
5 James Noble (KTM UK) 18 + 16 = 34
6 Wayne Smith (Pioneer Yamaha) 12 + 18 = 30
7 Mark Eastwood (Wiseco Honda) 15 + 15 = 30
8 Danny Smyth (Wiseco Honda) 14 + 13 = 27
9 David Yelland (Phoenix Honda) 9 + 6 = 15
10 Jamie Smith (LPE Kawasaki) 5 + 9 = 14
11 Alex Rockwell (Danger Honda) 7 + 7 = 14
12 David Willet (Yamaha) 8 + 5 = 13
13 Jordan Rose (PAR Honda) 13 + 0 = 13
14 Jim Murro (STR Honda) 0 + 12 = 12
15 Jamie Lewis (Kawasaki) 0 + 11 = 11
16 Richard Lawson (Twisted7 Kawasaki) 3+8=11, 17 Stuart Anderson (Swift Suzuki) 11+0=11, 18 Bryan MacKenzie (Twisted7 Kawasaki) 0+10=10, 19 Michael Phillips (NA Robinson KTM) 6+4=10, 20 Carlos Campano (Utag Yamaha) 10+0=10, 21 Luke Mellows (Dirtbikestore KTM) 2+2=4, 22 Ricky Mair (???) 4+0=4, 23 Luke Hill (???) 0+3=3, 24 Carl Brogden (NA Robinson KTM) 1+1=2.
RACE ONE: 1 Billy MacKenzie, 2 Jones, 3 Church, 4 Noble, 5 Hucklebridge, 6 Eastwood, 7 Danny Smyth, 8 Rose, 9 Wayne Smith, 10 Anderson, 11 Anderson, 12 Yelland, 13 Willet, 14 Rockwell, 15 Michael Phillips, 16 Jamie Smith, 17 Mair, 18 Lawson, 19 Mellows, 20 Brogden.
RACE TWO: 1 Billy MacKenzie, 2 Hucklebridge, 3 Church, 4 Wayne Smith, 5 Noble, 6 Eastwood, 7 Jones, 8 Danny Smyth, 9 Murro, 10 Lewis, 11 Bryan MacKenzie, 12 Jamie Smith, 13 Lawson, 14 Rockwell, 15 Yelland, 16 Willet, 17 Michael Phillips, 18 Hill, 19 Mellows, 20 Brogden.
SERIES STANDINGS after 3 (of 8) rounds: 1 Billy MacKenzie 150 points, 2 Church 106, 3 Jones 106, 4 Noble 97, 5 Anderson 89, 6 Wayne Smith 87, 7 Gundersen 78, 8 Hucklebridge 70, 9 Eastwood 70, 10 Danny Smyth 50, 11 Michael Phillips 50, 12 Bryan MacKenzie 42, 13 Jamie Smith 41, 14 Rose 35, 15 Lewis 30, 16 Willet 30, 17 Murro 28, 18 Lawson 27, 19 Elderfield 23, 20 Rockwell 23, 21 Yelland 15, 22 Rach 14, 23 Glen Phillips 12, 24 Anderson 10, 25 Law 10,
NEXT ROUND: May 4 Cadders Hill, Lyng, Norfolk (Norwich Viking MCC).
BRITISH MX2 MOTOCROSS CHAMPS
Rd 3 Waggadon Farm, Torrington, Devon
(Torridge & DMCC)
1 Stephen Sword (Molson Kawasaki) 25 + 20 = 45
2 Shaun Simpson (KTM UK) 18 + 25 = 43
3 Jason Dougan (Suso MVRD Suzuki) 16 + 22 = 38
4 Martin Barr (Utag Yamaha) 22 + 15 = 37
5 Elliott Banks-Browne (Swift Suzuki) 20 + 16 = 36
6 Marcus Norlen (Suso MVRD Suzuki) 14 + 18 = 32
7 Carl Nunn (Suso MVRD Suzuki) 13 + 14 = 27
8 Mike Brown (CAS Honda) 11 + 12 = 23
9 Ashley Greedy (PAR Honda) 9 + 13 = 22
10 Joseph Dark (Meredith Suzuki) 15 + 5 = 20
11 Lewis Gregory (Relentless Suzuki) 12 + 7 = 19
12 Alex Snow (KTM UK) 10 + 8 = 18
13 Neville Bradshaw (DB Honda) 6 + 10 = 16
14 Jonathan Pettitt (TM UK) 5 + 9 = 14
15 Shane Carless (PAR Honda) 0 + 11 = 11
16 Mel Pocock (Utag Yamaha) 8+0=8, 17 Alan Keet (Pioneer Yamaha) 7+0=7, 18 Kristian Whatley (NA Robinson KTM) 0+6=6, 19 Klemen Gercar (Utag Yamaha) 4+2=6, 20 Daniel Arnold (Pioneer Yamaha) 1+4=5, 21 Matthew Moffat (Scott Leathers KTM) 0+3=3, 22 Stuart Edmonds (Electraction TM) 2+1=3, 23 Alex Butler (Corby Kawasaki) 3+0=3.
RACE ONE: 1 Sword, 2 Barr, 3 Banks-Browne, 4 Simpson, 5 Dougan, 6 Dark, 7 Norlen, 8 Nunn, 9 Gregory, 10 Brown, 11 Snow, 12 Greedy, 13 Pocock, 14 Keet, 15 Bradshaw, 16 Pettitt, 17 Gercar, 18 Butler, 19 Edmonds, 20 Arnold.
RACE TWO: 1 Simpson, 2 Dougan, 3 Sword, 4 Norlen, 5 Banks-Browne, 6 Barr, 7 Nunn, 8 Greedy, 9 Brown, 10 Carless, 11 Bradshaw, 12 Pettitt, 13 Snow, 14 Gregory, 15 Whatley, 16 Dark, 17 Arnold, 18 Moffat, 19 Gercar, 20 Edmonds.
SERIES STANDINGS after 3 (of 8) rounds: 1 Sword 129 points, 2 Simpson 113, 3 Barr 111, 4 Banks-Browne 87, 5 Bradshaw 72, 6 Dougan 70, 7 Leuret 67, 8 Nunn 60, 9 Norlen 60, 10 Campano 55, 11 Brown 52, 12 Searle 50, 13 Whatley 48, 14 Snow 47, 15 Pocock 38, 16 Greedy 33, 17 Swanepoel 30, 18 Dark 25, 19 Pettitt 24, 20 Probert 21, 21 Carless 20, 22 Gregory 19, 23 Keet 17, 24 Gercar 15, 25 Arnold 14,
NEXT ROUND: May 4 Cadders Hill, Lyng, Norfolk (Norwich Viking MCC)
For full report and pictures see T+MX NEWS, Friday, April 18, 2008