Apart from a slight drizzle, conditions were surprisingly good for the third round of the Maxxis British Motocross Championship at Cadders Hill, Lyng.
Buildbase Honda rider Nicolas Aubin stole the show in qualifying, setting fastest lap time, then duplicating his speed in the one lap “Superpole”.
A crash in the early stages of race one however, dented his chances of first race success and a broken oil pipe brought a sudden holt to Nico`s CRF250 Honda with only 2 laps to go. Elliott Banks Browne took a start to finish victory but not without holding off the attack of Graeme Irwin through the whole race. Championship leader Mel Pocock raced to a strong third place. Jordan Booker finished a fantastic 7th place riding hard from start to finish with the remaining young Buildbase Honda rider Ryan Houghton finishing a creditable 13th.
Pocock made no mistake in the second moto. Once he hit the front, he was never headed though once again Irwin was on his tail. EBB started strong but crashed at the halfway mark and was forced to settle for 5fifth. Third place at the flag was Brian MacKenzie some 13 seconds behind. Moto 2 also provided an excellent stage for all three Buildbase MX2 riders, with Houghton this time setting the standard finishing a fine 7th place battling with the front runners. Booker worked his way into 9th with Aubin coming through the field to complete the top ten after a big crash in the early stages.
With the track becoming tortuously rough, the third moto was always going to be tough as lap times were reduced by around ten seconds compared to moto 1. EBB hit the front and hung on for a comfortable win, while Pocock was happy to snatch another big bag of points in the runner-up position. Booker and Houghton once again launched into the leading pack on the first lap and began their battle in 5th and 6th spots respectively, just behind Steven Lenoir. At the halfway stage, the young guns were holding their own when Booker made a critical error and crashed heavily, with Houghton unable to avoid the Booker wreckage, he too went down which demoted the pair way down the field. Both fought bravely to the end of the race with Houghton safely in the points in 17th spot and Booker an unlucky 25th suffering an almost unusable gear lever.
Nico` rounded off his day with another event-filled race finishing an eventual 8th.
Aubin and Booker now hold 7th and 8th respectively in the title race with five rounds still to go and with Pocock at the top of the tree with 185 points and the Buildbase duo around 80 points away, the next Maxxis British Championship round at Milton Park, Northampton at the end of this month (May 27th) will be a thriller.
Hopefully we`ll see you there.
Image by: Jemma MX Photography
