Maxxis round 1 - Little Silver
New Season - New Team
With an all new line up of riders ready for a fresh assault on the British championship, team owner Roy Emberson went away from the hillside Devon circuit with a knowing smile. His Mx1 signing of Kristian Whatley, son of former British Champion Jeremy looked to be a promising star and genuine podium finisher. The gate dropped for moto 1 in cold but bright conditions with Whatley at the back of the pack, at the end of lap one he was in a lowly 26th but fought hard race long to get inside the top 10 at the flag.
Moto 2 saw a better start as he came round past the large crowd in 9th, within 3 laps he was on the rear fender of race one winner Dougan. By lap 6 he'd found a way round and set off after former British champion Anderson, for 5 laps he tailed Ando making his move on the penultimate lap for an amazing ride and lots of crowd recognition finishing a very creditable 3rd aided by the demise of Sword on the CCM.
The final moto had the crowd on there toes in anticipation. Had it not been for the low winter sun making vision incredibly difficult Whatley's 6th place may have been higher, but none the less still an excellent result again catching and passing 2009 champ Anderson in the later stages of the race giving Kristian 5th overall in the championship and his competitors something that they hadn't bargained for!
Mx2 main Samsung challenge was to be fronted by Ray Rowson back from injury and out to prove he still had the pace to run at the front he Holeshot moto 1 and started to gap the field showing incredible speed, inevitably the established stars of the class pulled out the stops and by lap 4 title favourite Osborne had caught and passed Rowson followed by another title favourite Nichols.
But Rowson hung in and despite lack of recent race time only relinquished one more place to Swiss GP star Tonus. While Rowson was running up front Rookie Jackson Evans, the third man in the team, got swamped off the gate coming round near the tail end but showing good speed he picked the lower numbers off one by one to finish just outside the point scoring positions.
Moto 2 had the Samsung team mates in reverse order with Evans inside the top 10 and Rowson 4 places back in 13th. By lap 4 Rowson had re-established the pecking order only to make a mistake dropping him back behind Evans, Evans still running an incredibly inside the top 10! However the charging Rowson was back past the following lap and both riders benefited from an off by South African Goosen. Rowson went on to 8th at the flag and Evans held top 10 until 2 laps from the end when the experienced Keet, Edmonds and Probert got past pushing him into 12th and his first haul of Maxxis points!
With the sun low and the track in more of a state then Libya the final outing was a tough affair for both riders, both got poor starts and although Rowson had pulled up to 13th by the halfway mark a problem saw him drop out of the points by the end of the race but even with the non scoring moto he still finished 9th overall 4 places higher than his qualification! Evans managed to end the day in 21st a brilliant feat and all the riders showed great promise for another successful season ahead.
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