REPORT: Great Scotts!

Lassu clinched the 450cc championship in style with a hard-fought overall victory, fighting back from a big crash in race four to win the fifth and final race. Meadows had to settle for second behind local wildcard Kieran Banks but with his main opposition Brad Wheeler recovering from a knee op he didn't need to hang it out to lift the 250cc title.

Saturday's three MX1 races were dominated by wildcard Jon May who took a hat-trick of wins before a mechanical problem in his first race on Sunday sidelined him for the rest of the day. 

With his only real title rival Rob Clitheroe out injured the championship was Lassu's for the taking and after a couple of fourth-placed finishes he ended the opening day with a third.

The hardpack circuit with its technical off-cambers and plenty of lines was super-rough for Sunday and in race four Lassu was caught out on the last lap, going down hard while holding third behind Brad Cavill and Alex Rach.

Remounting without losing a place, he managed to get to the finish line and took the title with a gutsy race five performance, passing Alex Hussey on lap three and clearing off to win by almost seven seconds. With the top three all tying Lassu's last race performance gave him the overall.

"I'm well happy to win the title and to top it off I won the last race and I've just been told I've got the overall,” said the 26-year-old. "In the last race I managed to pass Alex who was riding well and then just put my head down and got away. I couldn't be any happier.

"In the fourth race I had a big crash on the last lap. I got up and was seeing stars – my helmet had gone, my bars were gone – but I had a big lead ahead of fourth so I got back on and finished the race.

"The track got rough but the rougher it got the better I rode. I'm not used to riding hardpack – where I live it's just sand – so getting on this is a totally different game and I'm well happy to come away with the title. I can go on holiday now and relax.”

Cavill finished second overall, tying on points with Hussey but getting the verdict thanks to his better race five result. Rach was fourth ahead of Michael Smith and Chris Shallcross who still holds a comfortable second in the championship from Smith.

Banks dominated the Craigs Motorcycles MX2 races, winning the first four and looking odds-on for a clean sweep of race wins until getting caught up in some first lap chaos in race five. Coming round in a distant 28th, he made an amazing 

15 passes on lap two and passed Josh Taylor for third on the last lap.

The race win went to Josh Broadway who holeshot and led every lap with new champion Meadows second for the third consecutive time.

"I've got to be happy with the title seeing as we've still got one round to go,” said Meadows. "It's been a good season with plenty of battles – it's not been given to me, I've had to work for it. It's been made easier obviously with Brad having to pull out because of his knee, that took a lot of weight off. 

"I'd say riding wise my best round was at Hawkstone even though I didn't come away with the win. At Mildenhall I came away with the overall which obviously I was happy with but I felt I didn't ride as well there.

"Roll on next year. I'm not sure what we're going to do yet, step up to MX1 or stay in MX2. It depends on the bikes but we'll definitely be here at the Scott Nationals, I'm just not sure of the class. We'll see what happens over the winter.”

 

FOR FULL REPORT AND PICTURES SEE TMX AUGUST 20