The eighth round of the Maxxis British Championship marked the end of the series and 2015 season, which was one Elliott Banks-Browne would rather forget. Following that injury he sustained in arenacross, he returned to racing at the end of the June and has since posted a handful of good results. Most people believe he is capable of much more though…
MX Vice: Obviously this wasn’t how you wanted to end the season, but it kinda sums up the year you’ve had. You showed some speed but had some bad luck…
Elliott Banks-Browne: Yeah, like in the first one I felt pretty good. I pumped up a little bit, but I was riding well other than that. I felt like I had second in the bag to be honest, but then I went through the rollers at the end and landed in a really big hole. I was a bit off-balance, I don’t know if that was anything to do with my leg. I was a little bit cross-rutted, but when I went in I bottomed out so bad. My back went really painful and I was really struggling – for the next five laps I could hardly stand up.
When I came in I was really in a lot of pain. We iced it and stuff, but there wasn’t much I could do in the second race – I was in a lot of pain. This year it has just been one thing after another; you couldn’t even write what has happened to me. I’ve had a little bit of bad luck I guess. It makes me more determined going into next year. I just want to get everything ready now; I’ve got an appointment with the surgeon about my leg to see if he wants to take some metal out, because it’s bothering me a bit. I’ll be one hundred percent healthy coming into next year and we’ll come in all guns blazing. I think we can get the job done next year. The speed isn’t really a problem – I still don’t feel like I’m up to one hundred percent speed-wise.
Is the leg something that has been bothering you since you returned then, or did you tweak it?
When I first got back on the bike it didn’t really bother me that much, but ever since it seems to be getting worse. I saw a surgeon, he said where the callas is building up he thinks it’s pulling on the tendons. I might have to have one of the screws taken out, then he said it should hopefully be alright. At Preston I tore my knee a little bit as well, which has made everything much worse. I’ve got to get the cartilage sorted as well. This year is going to be easy to put behind me, for sure, there haven’t been many positives. I won one race in arenacross, then the Frenchman tried to kill me. We’ll go into next year and see how it goes – staying with the same team and everything, and looking forward to it. I’m determined to come back even stronger, especially after the two seasons I’ve had on the 450F.
Are you happy to be staying with the same team? It must help going into the off-season with something to build off of.
Yeah. I think at the beginning of the year going into arenacross we were a little bit behind with the bike and stuff, but we’ve got everything sorted now. We’re in a much better position going into next year. We’ve only got to improve on little areas where we were starting from scratch. I’m really happy, they do a great job and the bike’s awesome. I think we have the formula to do really well next year.
I’m going to do some GPs with the team – we’re going to try and do five or six European GPs. I think that will really help us going into the British championship.
Is the MXGP series something that you’re looking to get back into then?
Definitely, I’ve said to them all along. This year I was going to do some GPs, because it helps the speed so much. I’ve said all along I want to be back in GPs and they know that. They’re more than happy to take me there to try and get some good results. Hopefully that’ll reflect onto the British championship.
