Saturday evening saw the second round of the British Supercross championship promoted by future west, take place at the Odyssey Arena in Belfast. The event in Northern Ireland would mark the competitive debut of the Maxxis Henderson LPE Kawasaki rider Martin Barr in front of his home crowd, also racing alongside Martin would be Ashley Greedy
The evening started well with Martin making light work of his two qualification heats taking victory in both. During the two heats Martin looked comfortable and at home on the tight and technical track inside the Odyssey and he managed to avoid any incidents. Ashley also performed well in both qualification heats to take 2nd in each and qualify to the main races.
During the interval Ashley took part in the Head to Head heat races and beat off the challenge from Stuart Edmonds in the final to take home the £700 cash pot.
After the Head to Head finals it was time for the two main finals of the evening with the SX Lights race up first. Martin made a strong start and quickly moved into a position to fight for an overall podium place. As the race went on Martin got involved in a race long battle for third place and would take the final podium place. Ashley Greedy rode a steady race to take home 7th place at the finish.
In the SX final Martin shot out of the gate in second place behind Brad Anderson. As the race went on Martin made a small mistake going down in a turn and slipped to the back of the field, but he pushed hard & quickly got back up to 5th place. Once in 5th place Martin suffered bad luck after being taken down by Aubin. Which put paid to what could have been Martins second podium of the night For Ashley it would be another steady race and another consistent result with a 6th place finish, with Martin in 11th.
The Championship now takes a break until after the Christmas break with round 3 taking place at the Wembley Arena.
Ashley Greedy
I’m super pumped about winning the Head to Head races tonight, it’s a lot about luck but you still have to be smart out there. In the main events I suffered with poor starts, I had a 7th in the Lights and 6th in the Open, so I have stayed consistent for the Championship and hopefully I can do a bit better in the New Year and get the win.
Martin Barr
It’s been a good night, I took the wins in both the Lights and Open heat race so went straight into the main. In the Lights Main I didn’t get the best of the start but rode well and came away for with third place. In the SX Open final I got a better start and then lost the front end and went down. I got back up and was running well and feeling good. Then I passed Aubin for 5th place nice and clean and then he took me down in the next corner, so I finished 11th. It’s a long season next year and it was good to have my first race for the new team this weekend.
Steve James
The racing has been very exciting and eventful this evening, in the heats everything went well with Martin winning both his heats and Ashley finishing second in both of his heats and with only the top 2 riders going through to the main it couldn’t have been a better start to the evening for us. Then Ashley went on to win one of the most entertaining Head to Heads I’ve ever seen, which really set the mood for the team and everything was looking good. Next up was the Lights final, Martin missed the start but got up to third at the finish after battling with Sword for a good few laps. Ashley rode well to come through traffic for 7th. Then in the SX Open final Martin made the start and was in second when he went down and had to battle his way back up to 5th from last, he was pushing really hard and it looked like another podium was within reach until Aubin went for a block pass resulting in Martin’s front wheel being taken away which cost Martin another top five result but that’s supercross and racing at the end of the day. For Ashley it was another good solid ride for 6th place and keeps him consistent. I was really pleased with Ashley tonight he rode very maturely especially in the head to head. I would also just like to thank my two new mechanic’s Teasy and Andy Pringle for preparing and turning out two very good bikes for tonight.
Tonight was a lot of firsts for both Martin and the team, it was Martin’s first ride on the team, first ride on the new 2012 KXF 250 Kawasaki and showed just how good the new bike is coming first in both of his heat races and was for sure one of the fastest guys on track all night tonight. He has really gelled with the bike and I am really proud to have Martin on the team next year and very much looking forward to working with him. It was also our first race for two of our new team sponsor’s for 2012, we used the supercross this weekend to debutise our recent massive additions to the team, firstly we are now a officially backed Pro Circuit team which is fantastic it is going to be great working with Mitch and the guy’s at Pro Circuit plus David and Nick at CGH in the UK, Mitch sent over some pipes and we ran one on the bike tonight and Martin said it was awesome and made the motor so strong.
Then just this past week I have agreed a mega deal with Apico Factory Racing for the team to use Answer Clothing and Arai helmets next year along with having so many other fantastic Apico products available to us which is absolutely brilliant, Martin wore Answer clothing and an Arai helmet tonight and the kit looked very nice, it is going to be good to work with Scott, Ash and Vesty at Apico as they also have a lot of passion for the sport.
