MXPG: Sharing Gareth's dream
By TMX Archives on 4th Jun 09
This week JD took time-out with Sean Lawless (of DBR fame) to have a look at the MXGP of Great Britain...
IN the early part of May, off-road sport in Britain – and therefore T+MX – was dominated by international trials. First there was the traditional Scottish Six Days, which was followed immediately by the British round of the World Trials Championship. Two very different events. The Scottish is a total anachronism, as modern trials bikes are totally unsuitable for the high daily mileages involved, yet the event remains as popular as ever with its straight-forward, traditional sections. In total contrast, the World Championship trial, staged this year on the fringe of the Lake District, near Carlisle, is everything that the modern trials bike is designed for with a course of negligable mileage coupled with a heavily man-made course.
Last weekend of course the whole off-road scene flipped to motocross domination with the MXGP of Great Britain staged at Mallory Park and, while not able to dedicate the whole weekend to Mallory, I was duly up at sparrow-fart on Sunday and half an hour later pulled-up outside my fellow editor, DBR's Sean Lawless's, house laughing at the bleary eyes, blinking heavily in the sunlight, that greeted me through the bedroom window. Sean had been to a family wedding on Saturday (see, to the total surprise of some people, us guys actually attempt a life outside work!) and was in slight need of a chauffeur! And, with a nice early start and little traffic on the M6 we even had time for a greasy motorway breakfast and STILL made it to Mallory with an hour to go before the first race.
First things first, it was once again blindingly obvious what a HUGE effort had gone into turning Mallory Park, a well-established and much-loved road-race venue, into a place fit for the biggest MX event in the country. It is, as MXGP promoter Gareth Hockey discovered very early in his search for a ‘home' for the GP, a very ‘friendly' venue. Just a pity that the MX track has to be demolished and re-built after each GP as the necessary heavy earth-works just doesn't allow the MX track area to mature and grow some much-needed grass. If it did, and the track was allowed to settle so that all it needed was an annual conditioning, I would argue that it would be a near-perfect venue.
As it is, the bare-earth makes it necessary for spectators to stand (unless they are the professional spectators who remember to bring chairs and cool boxes full of food and drink and stuff) which does take the edge off the experience. Sure, the hard-core MX fans don't give a monkeys but I personally know one mum with kids who was persuaded to give it a try but who won't be going again. This isn't meant as a knocking piece, it is just stating a fact.
Likewise the track. The Mallory track is virtually a perfect example of the MXGP track as dictated by the Youthstream model of GPMX. Given that Mallory does provide all the non-race facilities required, i.e.: hard-standing, office space, press facilities, blah, blah, etc, etc, the track is, as we have said, by necessity hand-built. No-one knows the score better than Gareth, he has all the right ideas to try and make it a proper MX course but the good ideas, like the negative camber corners, don't really work as they end-up with just one fast line.
Enough already, it is easy to pick fault and it's the racing that counts and given that half the original MXGP line-up was frustratingly either out of action or riding injured there was still plenty to get excited about – and the crowd was quick to get behind the Brits while remaining almost surprisingly supportive of all contenders. I say ‘surprisingly' as last year there was quite a bit of hostility shown to Toni Cairoli after he showed no mercy with our own Tommy Searle, dispatching him without ceremony over the berm on the left-hander just after the finish-line jump. Yet with Cairoli struggling with injury this time, the crowd was magnanimous, cheering him on as they appreciated the sheer effort the Italian was investing as he strove for the best finish in the circumstance.
We might not have had Brits challenging for podiums – although you just never know with the likes of Billy MacKenzie – but there's currently one rider of whom you know exactly what you'll get. The rider is Brad Anderson and what you get is 100 per cent – 100 per cent of the time. Who else would blast out of an unfavourable gate into sixth place and then stay ahead of a Who's Who of World MX1 Championship stars for the majority of the race. It was almost worth going to Mallory just to watch Brad overtake Mickael Pichon in that opening race...
But I've got side-tracked. Where I was originally going with this was to point out the obvious similarity between the current twin ‘ideals' of World Championship Trials and Motocross. Both aim for facilities first with the sections/ circuits bolted on afterwards... it's not perfect – but it does work.