World War Two
By TMX Archives on 2nd Jan 09
IN the end it was all too easy for KTM to get the World MX2 title back on the shelf for the first time in four years, but for more than half the season it was knock-about all the way with the orange duo of Tyla Rattray and Tommy Searle banging bars with Toni Cairoli for the race wins.
The facts speak for themselves. While nine men topped the MX1 scorecard at some time during the season, only four motos fell to anyone else all year in MX2, and the next generation were generally not in touch.
When Rattray swept both motos at Valkenswaard, no one really took it as a sign that the South African was on course for the crown. He had won races early in the campaign before, particularly in sand, and had been out of contention by mid-summer.
A good performance in sand is necessary for title chasers because they can't afford to lose too many points on that type of going, but there are not enough races in the soft stuff to allow the specialists to get one hand on the bigger trophy. And, an old piece of wisdom, the title is won during the run-in, not at the first race.
Searle was already crashing, and Cairoli did not have his usual sharp edge after spending most of the spring riding a 450, but both Jeremy Van Horebeek and Joel Roelants proved they could run the pace for 20-minutes in their native sand, and Shaun Simpson had a rock-solid start for sixth overall – just a taste of what was to come.
The first race at Bellpuig ran off to the form-book with another win for Rattray ahead of Cairoli, but by the time the MX2 boys took to the line for the second time, the track had been churned into a quagmire and the intervening Veteran's race had been red-flagged after 15-minutes with only a handful of riders even circulating twice!
"You will see, the young boys will get round,” insisted FIM boss, Wolfgang Srb, on the Veteran's podium presentation when I asked if the track would be re-routed for the rest of the programme. "Do you really think so?” I retorted, intimating that he obviously hadn't been very far round the track.
I trudged up to the hillside steps to record the chaos, and the rest is history. It took a minute for more than a dozen riders to even get that far, all of 500-yards from the start, and within five-minutes half of the riders making the summit were being directed inside the course markers until Cairoli's press officer stalked into the track to block the route as his man was stuck on the hillside after taking the ‘legal' route.
The ‘race' continued, but by the half-hour there were times when the rest of the track was silent for a minute at a time. The transponders were providing a result, but even team personnel were struggling to recognise their own riders and evil tongues reckoned the red-flag came out because officials wouldn't have known who to give the chequered flag to until he was past the electronic beam.
Gautier Paulin was actually leading by then, but on count-back to the previous lap Davide Guarneri – hopelessly stuck on the hillside – was hailed as winner.
Five minutes later the fence was opened at the base of the hill to let him and others escape to the paddock and podium. Stephen Sword got his first podium since 2005 despite losing an entire lap early in the race.
Racing was back to normal at Agueda, in Portugal, a week later and so was Toni Cairoli. The defending champ was flying and neither of the KTMs could stay in touch. Searle tried hard, but fell in the attempt, Rattray simply wasn't fast enough.
FOR FULL STORY SEE T+MX NEW, FRIDAY, JANUARY 2, 2009