European champion
Jeremie Warnia put in a special guest appearance at round two of the NORA MX championships at Grittenham on Sunday and lived up to all the pre-event hype with a fine overall win in the Expert class.
The Frenchman, who will ride in a number of rounds of this year’s British Championship, came through the pack in the first two races to win both, before being edged into second in the final race by club champion Luke Cooper who had grabbed the holeshot in each leg.
Warnia, now back on a Yamaha after several years with Can-Am, tried a different set of shocks in the third race as he continued to get to grips with his new machine but admitted the switch back-fired.
“It was horrible!” he said. “This is the first time I have ridden the 2014 machine in a moto cross so I wanted to try some new things. But it was a mistake. Everything on my body hurts now.”
“But it’s been a really good days racing and I have enjoyed myself. Nice track, nice weather, nice people,” added Warnia, who will be back in England for the second round of the British championship at Foxhills on May 26.
Despite a steady start in the first race Warnia had pushed through to the lead before half-distance and went on to win by 15 seconds from Cooper and Stefan Murphy, the runaway winner of the first round at Mepal.
The second race was similar, but this time the winning margin over Cooper was just under ten seconds, with George Callaway a strong third. Murphy’s overall chances disappeared though when he shipped his chain, then was DQ’d for receiving outside assistance.
In the final race however, the spectators were treated to a great race as Cooper, again out of the gate like a bullet, led the way and held off a brief challenge from Warnia mid-race. That challenge faded only for Warnia to have to mount a rear guard action to keep Callaway in third.
Callaway put in the quickest lap of the race in his efforts to get through. Murphy was fourth.
British champion Paul Holmes, who set the quickest time in qualifying, was dogged with bad luck. He broke a track rod in race one, then his collarbone in race two in a first turn crash.
Cooper got some consolation by again taking the Under 23 class, from Callaway and Sheldon Seal.
A packed Clubman group saw Harry Walker score an impressive maximum to secure the overall. Walker won the first race by over 30 seconds and the second by seven. In both he led from the front. However, in the third race he had to work his way to the front, before grinding out a five second winning gap.
His points gap over the next finisher, fellow-Rookie James Bevan, was 21, the biggest of the whole meeting.
Bevan was part of a group of around six riders who all looked capable of top three finishes and spent much of the day battling together, However, his consistent third, fourth and fifth finishes just gave him a two point advantage over Tom Yates, the leading Clubman rider.
Kyle Hawkes had gone into the final race in second overall after a fourth and second, but a stalling motor ruined his hopes and he came home 10
th.
In the ACU British Masters championship normal service was resumed when reigning champion Ed Davies, who suffered a surprise defeat in the opening round, bounced back with a maximum. His smallest winning margin, each time over Ant Barrett, was 16 seconds.
In the first race Ben Morgan was third and Gary Aldington fourth, but both suffered bad luck later in the day and did not feature in further races. Morgan crashed out of the first EVO race, in which he was also competing (see below), while Aldington’s motor blew while challenging Barrett in race two.
Matthew James took victory in the Masters B group with two class wins and a second.
The EVO class looked to be going easily to Morgan, but he crashed heavily in the final stages of the first race while leading comfortably, and was ruled out of the rest of the meeting with a broken collarbone.
Geoff Otway, on a sweet sounding twin cylinder Yamaha Banshee, took over the lead, plus won the remaining two races after some good battles with Trevor Huphris.
The ACU 250 British championship produced some fine racing between first round winner, Martin Adamson from Estonia, and Bailey Edwards. Edwards won the first race by nine seconds from Adamson, but crashed in the second after clipping Adamson’s rear wheel and slumped to 25
th.
Edwards bounced back to win the third race, but had no chance to take overall victory with Adamson again coming in second.
Scotland’s Lawrence Whyte secured second overall with a fine 3-2-3 and showed strong early pace in all the races before just slipping back from the on-form Adamson and Bailey.
Meanwhile Dafydd Davies put in a cracking performance to take third overall on his 250 Modified machine on a track much more suited to the nine more powerful Open machines behind him.
He won all three legs of the Modified class, with Ayrton Knowles second in all three races, with the closest Knowles got to Davies being nine seconds behind in the first outing.
Oliver Martin was the rider on form in the 250 Standard class, taking three wins. Three different riders took runner up places - Daniel Hares, Harry Ruby and Bradley Lightfoot – but it was Lightfoot who secured second overall.
In the 100 group first round winner Marcus Sprason won again, but this time thanks to race wins rather than consistency. In the first he trailed Joshua Birch by just two seconds. However, Sprason then moved up a gear to win the second by 16 seconds and the third by 25 seconds, each time from Birch.
Shelley Smart was on form in the 100 Modifieds, winning all three races, Luke Berlyn won the 125 Raptor class, Dillon Stepney the 100 Standards and Aled Davies the 50s.
RESULTS: Experts: 1 Jeremie Warnia, 2 Luke Cooper, 3 George Callaway, 4 Paul Winrow, 5 Carl Bunce, 6 Sheldon Seal
Under 23: 1 Luke Cooper, 2 George Callaway, 3 Sheldon Seal, 4 Luke Davies, 5 Harry Miller, 6 Nick Tucker
Clubman: 1 Harry Walker, 2 James Bevan, 3 Tom Yates, 4 Kyle Hawkes, 5 Alex Bethell, 6 Jack Naylor
Rookie: 1 Harry Walker, 2 James Bevan, 3 Jack Naylor, 4 Alex Bethell, 5 Jamie Smith, 6 Ashley Brase
Masters British Championship: 1 Ed Davies, 2 Ant Barrett, 3 Darren Bridge, 4 Clint Eagle, 5 Lee Waring, 6 Matthew James
Masters B: 1 Matthew James, 2 Trevor Humphris, 3 Richard Clark, 4 Marcus West, 5 Clyde Thompson, 6 Marcus Knight
Evo: 1 Geoff Otway, 2 Martin Cook, 3 John Elliot, 4 Pat Carr, 5 Bruce Stocker, 6 Chris Watson.
Evo Standard: 1 Geoff Otway, 2 Martin Crook, 3 Bruce Stocker, 4 Trevor Humphris, 5 Eric Giddings, 6 Gavin Stearm.
Evo Plus: 1 Pat Carr, 2 Simon Crook, 3 Ben Morgan. No other finishers
Fun Cup: 1 John Elliot, 2 Chris Watson, 3 Dale Turner, 4 Christopher Sage. No other finishers
250cc Youth British Championship: 1 Martin Adamson, 2 Lawrence Whyte, 3 Dafydd Davies, 4 Jack Holmes, 5 Bailey Edwards, 5 Ayrton Knowles.
250 Open: 1 Martin Adamson, 2 Lawrence Whyte, 3 Bailey Edwards, 4 Jack Holmes, 5 Joshua Crane, 6 Jack Norris.
250 Modified: 1 Dafydd Davies, 2 Ayrton Knowles, 3 Harry Carmichael, 4 Thomas Chell, 5 Dean Porter, 6 Jacob Woodward.
250 Standard: 1 Oliver Martin, 2 Bradley Lightfoot, 3 Harry Ruby, 4 Daniel Hares, 5 Elysha Crane, 6 Declan McKenna.
250 Stock: 1 Shanice Mott. No other finishers
100 Group Overall: 1 Marcus Sprason, 2 Joshua Birch, 3 Alfie Walker, 4 Bobby Carmichael, 5 Shelley Smart, 6 Catrin Davies.
100cc Geared: 1 Marcus Sprason, 2 Joshua Birch, 3 Alfie Walker, 4 Bobby Carmichael, 5 Catrin Davies, 6 Vassna Wilcock.
100cc Modified: 1 Shelley Smart, 2 Mari Humfyes, 3 Tom Fitzgerald. No other finishers
100cc Standard: 1 Dillon Stepney. No other finishers.
Yamaha Raptor: 1 Luke Berlyn, 2 Reece Swann, 3 Josh Talent, 4 Lewis Humphris. No other finishers
50cc: 1 Aled Davies, 2 Elis Humfryes. No other finishers