Hot on the heels of a tough weekend in Ireland, JAR Honda by IFS made the 500-mile journey across the length of Great Britain to Landrake in Cornwall for the inaugural round of the Red Bull Pro Nationals.
The format change for the year meant that Saturday was spent readying the bikes for qualifying and one race, while Sunday continued to feature two races and a warm-up qualifying session.
The team’s riders, Lewis Tombs and Wayne Garrett, qualified in eighth and fifteenth in their classes respectively, although in this round, they would be starting in the overall qualifying position.
For Garrett, the weekend was a disaster. Although he finished his Saturday race fifteenth in the MX1 class, the first race on Sunday ended prematurely after a rock lodged in his rear suspension. The rain in the final race was the cherry on the cake.
Tombs found himself struggling in his race on Saturday, but after several changes to the bike, the second race was a significant improvement with a fourth in the MX2 class. The final race saw Tombs cross the finish line in eighth for a fifth place overall – a solid start to the season.
Wayne Garrett – MX1:
“From start to finish, this weekend has just been a disaster and it’s best forgotten.”
Lewis Tombs – MX2:
“It was a steady weekend, the highlight of which probably was the second race where I rode really good in that one. In the first race I just made things hard for myself, got caught behind a few people and just didn’t get into it. We then made some changes to the bike to just try some different things; I went out in practice and it felt a lot better. In the second race I was eighth and worked my way to fourth, which was pleasing. In the last race I crashed on the first corner and it was just hard work from there really. The rain didn’t help and I just took it steady.”
Richard Rea – Team coordinator:
“This weekend was difficult for us as a team. Both guys really seemed to struggle here. Lewis however made an improvement in Sunday morning’s practice session and proved he had good pace in race two for a fourth place finish. In the final race he also had good pace in the early stages before settling for solid points. Wayne struggled with pace and some bad luck this weekend. Race two was unfortunate for him, after trying to recover from a bad start he had a crash resulting in a rock getting jammed between the linkage and shock. Wayne’s confidence has taking a knock and it’s frustrating for us as a team seeing this but this is something we will support him with and get him back to his full potential as soon as possible. We have a weekend off now so this gives us some time to regroup and come back stronger!”
