Evotech Stevens Honda landed with a splash at the British Supercross season opener at the Sheffield Motorpoint Arena this past weekend and proceeded to wow the crowd with a fantastic performance.
Rider Neville Bradshaw was entered into both the SX Lites and SX classes, and started off the evening with a stunner of a qualifier in the former, leading from start to finish, and proceeding to the final race without too much trouble. Bradshaw then followed this up with an awesome performance in the SX Lites final, again leading from start to finish and holding off challenges by supercross veterans Adam Chatfield and Nicolas Aubin to the end.
In the SX class, Bradshaw encountered stiff resistance after a less than stellar start, was able to only make marginal progress and found himself starting in the Last Chance Qualifier race. Here he put the pressure on the leader right from the start, and two laps later took the lead for the win and transfer into the final event. The final did not go at all as planned. A bad start and a mistake in the second lap dropped him to the back of the pack, and Bradshaw spent the much of the race playing catch-up. Two thirds in, Bradshaw found himself back where he started, reeling in rival after rival before running into a formidable opponent Stuart Edmonds. Unable to pass Edmonds, Bradshaw was forced to take a sixth place home.
Matt Hutchins, team principal, was very satisfied with the evening: “It’s a fantastic result for Neville and the team. Neville’s put a lot of laps in at the supercross track and it paid off tonight. This has also been the first week with our new staff together, and everyone’s worked really hard on the new 2012 Honda CRF 250 to make this happen.”