Wednesday April 27, 2011 at 4:13pm
Easter Monday saw round two the Monster Energy FIM World Motocross Championship take place at the sandy Valkenswaard circuit in Holland, including the opening round of the UEM EMX2 championship.
The UEM EMX2 proved a busy weekend for the six British riders taking on some of the fastest riders in Europe. With nearly 100 riders looking to make it onto the starting lineup of just 40 riders on Monday morning, the Sunday wasn’t to kind for either Lewis Rose or James Cottrell after accidents caused them to miss the cut. On Monday morning the opening race of the day saw Alan Keet suffer similar bad luck that would cause him to withdraw from the race and the rest of the meeting. This left it down to Lewis Tombs, Anthony Reville and Dutch based Marcus-Lee Soper to bring home the results. In the opening race it was to be Lewis Tombs who would come home as the top Brit in 17th place with Reville in 26th and Soper in 27th after a mistake saw him drop from a strong top fifteen position. The second race of the day again saw Tombs gain another point with a 20th place finish, while Soper suffered bad luck to finish in 27th and Reville crashed out of 24th place.
The MX2 class saw Tommy Searle continue his strong run of consistency with a pair of third place finishes to end the day in third place overall and now sits in third place in the championship, just 10 points from series leader Ken Roczen. Maxxis British Championship regulars Arnaud Tonus and Zach Osborne continue their strong early season form. Tonus proved to have the better of his team mate on race day coming away with two fourth place finishes for fourth, while Osborne rode to a strong sixth place in the opening race before finishing in 8th place in the second race. Also competing in the MX2 class was Jordan Booker in his first season of Grand Prix racing, taking home 23rd overall with 21st and 23rd place finishes.
The MX1 class saw a mixed day of results for the British Championship Grand Prix regulars of Jason Dougan and Graeme Irwin, Dougan finished the event with two points scoring of 18th and 19th. For Irwin it was to be a hard days riding with little reward after two non-points scoring rides of 29th and 25th. It was to be the Wild Cards on Martin Barr and Gert Krestinov that were to produce the best results. The two Maxxis Championship regulars produced some strong results for 17th and 18th places overall. Barr first the opening race with a well-deserved 13th place finish, while Krestinov came away with a 15th place in the second race.