British MX - Northern Ireland Round - New Faces On The Podium

After a month's hiatus, the Maxxis British Motocross Championship rumbled back to life with the annual round in Northern Ireland. The weather leading up to the round had been good, and for a change it looked that the championship would see some weather similar to the round at Lyng, but it was not to be. The round piggybacked on a road race in the area in that the traditional race day on Saturday was moved to Sunday, in the hopes that it would improve the spectator figures.

Race day dawns with high winds and rain, but it does not stop the riders from putting in some fast laps when the first practice session goes out at 9:30. On pole is Team KTM UK's Shaun Simpson with a time of 1:54.943, followed just over a hundredth of a second later by Suso MVR-D's Carl Nunn and local rider, UTag Yamaha's Martin Barr.

The MX1 class has a bit of a shocker because there's a brand-new rider on the block who shows everyone else how it is done. PAR Homes Honda's Ray Rowson returned to the scene at the British World Motocross Grand Prix after twelve weeks of recuperation. His season, starting with a double win at the opening round of the British Open Motocross Championship, was cut short in the first race at the Hawkstone International in March. Rowson puts in a qualifying time very close to Simpson's in the MX2 class, and he is followed half a second later by Molson Kawasaki's Tom Church, and Pioneer Yamaha's Wayne Smith.

The glaring absence of the Monster CAS Honda team is obvious. The team's MX2 rider, Mike Brown, has returned to the US after an amicable parting with the team, while Billy MacKenzie, the MX1 rider, has sustained a shoulder injury at the French Grand Prix in St. Jean d'Angély, and sits out the round on the basis that he has enough of a points advantage to retain the lead.

As is customary, the first race out is the support class, in which Adrian Weatherhead takes the win over Michael Hand and Conor Bradley. The first MX2 race goes to the line in which Barr takes the lead immediately. However, Simpson is at an advantage as Barr is injured, and he makes a move on Barr that gives him the lead. As Barr and Simpson battle for the lead, there is another battle going on behind them. Youth rider Alan Keet, new to Pioneer Yamaha for 2008, has been in third for much of the race, but in the closing laps he drops back, into the clutches of a fast approaching Nunn and Moto One Racing's Graeme Irwin. A last lap manoeuvre by Nunn's team mate Marcus Norlen relegates Keet to seventh.

The first MX1 race looks to be Tom Church's as he is off the start like a shot. Smith and Rowson are hot in pursuit, and Smith takes the lead coming up to the big ski jump towards the paddock section. Rowson makes a move of his own a lap later and takes the lead from Smith, leading to a battle that Rowson wins by fourteen seconds. Team KTM UK's James Noble is third throughout, seeing off challenges from Twisted7 Kawasaki's Bryan MacKenzie and Church, who has come back from sixth. Church ends the race in fourth, while fellow Kawasaki man, ARB Tuning Kawasaki's Mark Jones, returns to race condition in fifth.

The second support race again goes to Weatherhead, but this time Bradley takes second place over Hand, taking second overall too.

The second MX2 race is child's play for Simpson. This time he leads from start to finish, and while the painkillers wear off for Barr, and a rock flung in his face for good measure does not improve the situation, Simpson builds up an impressive lead of thirty-nine seconds. Barr, blood streaming down his face, continues nonetheless, seeing off a challenge by DB Racing's Neville Bradshaw in third. Irwin and Keet yo-yo around the sixth place; Irwin moves up and back down again, Keet, exhausted from his first race, stumbles multiple times and slips progressively to thirteenth.

Molson Kawasaki's Stephen Sword, second in the first lap, also slips back progressively, leaving him very frustrated and annoyed. Leading the championship up to this point, he now has to hand over the red leader's plate to Simpson at the end of the day. Simpson, clearly, is first, while Nunn ends in third. The absence of Barr is explained by the announcement that he has had to see the on-site doctor about his facial injury, but he returns with a big plaster over his nose to take his place on the podium in second.

The final race of the day is all Wayne Smith's. Although Rowson comes back to second from fourth in the first two laps of the race, Smith keeps the young man from Shropshire at bay all the way. Rowson attempts a pass that goes wrong and costs him three positions, ending in fifth behind Noble, Anderson and Jones. Church, second in the first lap and the man with an incredible hole shot again, runs in third until mid-race where he also crashes, dropping to eighth. He makes it back to sixth though, right behind Rowson.

The podium sees some confusion. Smith is so used to riding back to the paddock, that he fails to realise that he has won, and his mechanic is despatched to fetch him back. His fiancé is in tears; after several years of simply no podiums in the Maxxis championship, Wayne is back on top, with a win no less. Noble, quiet as always, ends up second on the day, one point ahead of Rowson, who fills the third spot. Understandably this is a big deal with numbers twenty and one-eleven, so there are plenty of photo opportunities being taken.

Noble moves up to within twenty-three points of the leader of the championship, while Anderson is eleven points behind Noble. Smith and Church tie for fifth behind Jones, who is a scant three points ahead of Smith. With all of this over, the sun also makes its appearance again – too late yet again. The next round goes back to one of British motocross' most iconic sites – Foxhills.


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