Round three of the Michelin MX Nationals travels to darkest Norfolk this weekend, and the sandy, testing, old-school track of Lyng and the question will be who can beat Harri Kullas and his Cab Screen Deos Group Honda?
And even though Kullas is still a bit detuned for his own national championship crash that had an affected on him at Sidcup club’s Canada Heights British championship round almost three weeks ago, the answer is probably no one.
Second in the championship standing is ASA KTM’s Mel Pocock, but he had a big crash at the last Maxxis round and sat out racing last weekend and maybe not race fit, which leaves Gert Krestinov and his Phoenix Tools Kawasaki to take the challenge to Kullas.
Ryan Houghton has been suffering from a bug that’s stopped him riding and training which leaves Lewis Tombs, and the Jakes of Millward and Shipton to fight for podium positions.
The battle for the lead in the pro MX2s set once again between series leader Crescent Yamaha’s Martin Barr and Josh Gilbert on a Buildbase Honda as the pair are 36 points clear of third place rider Ben Franklin. But, with 50 points up for grabs, anything can happen.
Gavin Stevenson’s racing year is getting better and better as from a slow start at round one when he didn’t make the podium, he won all four of his races at the second round and led the expert MX1. Jason Meara had had two overall podium’s and is just fifteen points behind Stevenson while Richard Bird is eight points behind Meara.
Despite a DNF last round, he won the other three, Ben Clark leads the expert MX2 by fifteen from Aaron-Lee Hanson with Charlie Putnam three behind the pair of them. But you have to look down in sixth and seventh place for Rossi Beard and Joel Rizzi, and you know those two will be moving up the championship leader board.
Aiden Christie has a twenty-one-point lead over Stephen Kelly in the MX1 clubman class with third place man Adam Hayward only eight points further back. In the clubman, MX2’s Harry Fletcher has won five out of his eight races, but one low score has brought him within sixteen of second place brother of Dan, Brad Thornhill.
On the youth racing side of the event, Ike Carter is the man to beat in the MXY2s after winning the first two rounds he must be favourite. Only Kyle McNicol and Kacey Hird are only the other two riders to win a race, but they will be looking to change that.
On the MXY125cc two-stroke side of the race, Ryan Mawhinney leads James Smith by sixteen with Louie Kessell just six points behind them.
Sam Atkinson has won seven out of his possible eight races in the big wheel class and leads Bailey Johnston, the only other rider to win a race, with Thomas Harris a distant third.
Tyla Hooley leads the small wheel 85s from Finlay Boxall who failed to score in the last two races at Hawkstone. Harrison Greenough is third but look out for McKenzie Marshall. He didn’t do the first round but won the previous two races at round two and will add to his ninth place overall score this weekend.
It costs £12 online for a weekend spectator ticket, and £15 on the gate, with under 12-year old’s free, and £10 for camping. Words and pics by Dick Law.