Hooooolesssssshooooooot
Despite missing both their star riders at Canada Heights the Samsung Yamaha race team still managed to steal the show on the Saturdays racing with their two rookie riders putting on a fantastic show for the crowds basking in the sunshine. New boy Liam Garland was out to do even better than his Maxxis debut and indeed certainly showed great speed setting pole position in the Elite Youth Cup nearly a second faster than his closest rival on the day. Joe Bamfield too put in a great performance following team mate Garland home in 6th in this highly competitive class, indeed so competitive that only 10 seconds covered the top 30 riders!!!
A fantastic start to the weekend was continued as Garland put his Yamaha out front in moto 1 with Bamfield in 10th. Bamfield had his Samsung Yamaha out front doing close battle with championship hopeful James Dunn(Kawasaki) and for half the race the two riders kept the rest of the field at arms length until Garlands lack of race distance fitness started to have effect and the dreaded 'arm pump' took over allowing Dunn to get by and 3rd placed championship contender Jamie McCanny past, McCanny going on to win. Bamfield meanwhile had been moving forwards and had worked through to 6th with 5th place going to championship leader Nathan Watson.
Moto 2 and another great start from both riders with Garland hitting the front and Bamfield also inside the top 10. Again Dunn had gone with Garlnd and the two where so caught up in their own battle that a stricken rider stuck in the race line caused both riders to go down with Dunn remounting first. McCanny capitalised on this and again took the win. Bamfield too benefited from his team mates misfortune and picked up places eventually working his way up to what was to be his weekends best result of 5th. Garland managed to work his way back up the leader board and into 8th with the faster remounting Dunn 6th.
Moto 3 yet again had a Samsung Yamaha out front as Garland maintained his 100% start record for the day. This time he was off and really going strong until his enthusiasm got the better of him entering a corner too quickly and wrapping himself and bike into the chestnut fencing marking the track causing him to retire. Bamfield too was having a bad time of it, maybe the strains of the heat and pressure of the close competition causing two errors resulting in two crashes, but the plucky teenager was back up both times and battled his way valiantly through to 9th at the flag.
That wrapped up a pretty successful day for the Samsung Yamaha camp and Sunday's crowds again where to be treated to some great racing with the addition of the 'Pro' MX1 and 2 races. With the absence of two of Brad Andersons closest rivals, Kristian Whatley (Samsung Yamaha) and Stephen Sword (Buildbase CCM) it looked inevitable that the red plate holder would extend his lead in the championship standings. Indeed he did taking maximum points and with two 'safe' rides at the next round will wrap up the championship with one round spare! In the MX2 class Samsung Yamaha double whammy was they had no star, Ray Rowson was confirmed out for the rest of the season awaiting a knee operation which left the rookie pro Jackson Evans to fly the flag. Evans hot off his second lot of Maxxis points struggled in moto 1 as a crash at half distance saw him retire to safe energy for the second moto.
The second moto saw Evans with his no somewhat characteristic poor start have to work hard to move up the leader board in a tough class with the mixed MX1 and MX2 class machines but Evans had his Samsung Yamaha on song as he steadily moved up the leader board heading towards more points to add to his championship tally. When the chequered flag finally came out Evans had managed to move his Samsung machine through to a 14th place finish in the MX2 class securing a further 7 points and keeping him 16th on the championship leader board.
Moto 4 for the rookies saw Garland only bad start of the weekend as both he and Bamfield's Samsung Yamahas missed the advantage of a good start and had to battle through the field. Bamfields luck ran out as he suffered a front wheel puncture on lap two and was forced to retire, while Garlands Yamaha was all working great he himself was sore from Saturdays race 3 crash and suffered as he pulled up to 6th
Final moto for the Elite rookie riders saw Garland again put his Samsung Yamaha out front for 4 out of 5 holeshots over the weekends racing, truly increadable. A lead he held for 3 laps and his pace such that he had pulled enough out on the rest of the chasing pack that he managed another 3rd place finish somewhat surprising to his championship position of 7th, showing the switch to the Samsung Yamaha machinery a good move. Bamfields luck had upped and left him for Sundays racing as another DNF was to follow after a heavy crash saw bike and rider on the floor for too long to allow the Yamaha to fire up quickly. Overall results of Garland 7th and Bamfield 13th really didn't sum up their great weekends riding!
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