The Maxxis British championships of 2014 start next weekend at Culham Park which will be the first of the seven round series. Originally it should have been contested over eight rounds but sadly the Frome club’s Asham Woods track had been devastated by heavy, continuous, rain over the winter and it was felt that there was insufficient time to repair the damage before their scheduled date of Easter Monday.
The championship starts on 30
th March in Oxfordshire and finishes on 5
th October in Kent. In between there will be rounds in Co Durham, Cornwall, Norfolk, Bedfordshire and Essex so the competitors will be travelling many hundreds of miles to compete in all the rounds.
Once again the ACU motocross committee has waived the registration fee but to prevent oversubscription as happened last year they have made the entry qualification stricter. Hence there are twenty six riders who have registered for the series with the possibility of up to ten wild cards. Wild card riders will have to meet the same qualifying criteria as the registered riders.
Heading the entries are defending champions, Stuart Brown and Josh Chamberlain, on their 700cc Zabel WSP. Stuart will be looking for an unprecedented twelfth championship win whilst Josh will be looking for his fourth win. Recent results in Holland show that they have lost nothing during their winter hibernation and will take some beating.
Looking to displace the current champions are Richard Jenkins and Dan Chamberlain. They were the only team to have won races other than Brown / Chamberlain and also took the overall win at the final round. A terrible day at Grittenham in the middle of the year ruined their chances of winning the championship but they managed to recover to finish runners up.
Two other potential race winners are Brett Wilkinson and his new passenger Steve Kirwin and Jack Etheridge, now fully fit after last year’s health problems, and his passenger Scott Grahame. Both these teams have changed from four stroke powered units to two stroke Zabels so they will have to quickly get used to the very different characteristics of their new motors.
Returning after being out for the majority of last year because of injury are Daniel and Joe Millard. They have changed from Zabel to KTM powered for this year, something they will probably feel more comfortable with.
Also returning to the ACU code is ex AMCA champion Simon Bradford and his passenger Luke Peters. They paired up towards the end of last season when Luke retired from driving and their results to date show they are a force to be reckoned with.
Finally it’s good to see that three teams from Northern Ireland, namely Gary Moulds / Shane Taylor, Emma Moulds / Niki Adair and Neil Campbell / Ross Graham. All three competed in some rounds in 2013 and Emma became the first ever female to score points as a driver.
The first round is at Culham on 30
th March with practice starting at 09.00hrs and the first race is due to start at 11.00hrs. In addition to the three sidecar championship races there will be three races for junior solos and three for experts. Admission is a very reasonable £5 and the nearest postcode to the track for those using Sat Navs is OX14 3DA.
The rest of the championship is as follows:
1
st June Wooley Grange, Co Durham, DL15 9AN hosted by the North East Motocross club.
29
th June Landrake, Cornwall, PL12 5EP hosted by DK Sports Ltd.
27
th July Cadders Hill, Lyng, Norfolk, NR9 5QZ hosted by Norwich Vikings MCC.
17
th August, Old Park Farm, Toddington, LU5 6HE, hosted by Luton & DMCC.
7
th September, Little Loveney Hall, Wakes Colne Essex, CO6 2BH hosted by the Halstead & DMCC
5
th October Canada Heights, Swanley, Kent BR8 8DX hosted by the Sidcup & DMCC.
Chris Helm
Press Officer SMCA of GB