The historic Hawkstone Park marked the halfway point of the 2015 Maxxis ACU British Motocross Championship powered by Skye Energy. Sunshine and the added excitement of two times World MX2 Champion Jeffrey Herlings making a wildcard appearance there was sure to be plenty of great racing.
In the morning qualifying session it was as expected that Jeffrey Herlings on the Red Bull KTM would take the pole position after looking very comfortable in the deep Hawkstone Park sand and topped the MX2 qualifying session, but by less than one second from fellow Grand Prix rider Max Anstie on the Monster Energy DRT Kawasaki. However, this pair was a massive two seconds ahead of Pendrich Heights Services Kawasaki’s Bryan MacKenzie who was closely followed by series leader Steven Lenoir on the Dyer and Butler KTM and Apico Husqvarna’s Steven Clarke.
It was a much different story in the MX1 class as Series Leader and current champion, Shaun Simpson on the Hitachi Construction Machinery Revo KTM UK machine was over two and a half seconds ahead of LPE Kawasaki’s Tanel Leok and Steven Fossard who had recently changed to the 450 Wilvo Forkrent KTM machine. Graeme Irwin on Heads and Threads Suzuki and Gert Krestinov on Buildbase Honda Racing Team machine made it four different manufacturers in the top five.
Jeffrey Herlings dominated the action at the sun blessed Hawkstone Park with the Dutch ace dominated all three MX2 motos and winning comfortably, but Britain's own Max Anstie also had the legs on the rest of the field and gave everything to try and match the flying Herlings and closed the gap to just eight points on series leader Steven Lenoir in the Championship who recorded 3-3-4 moto results to take the lower step on the podium at the end of the day. Ben Watson and Adam Sterry also produced strong consistent results to take fourth and fifth place overall on the day.
The MX1 races were much closer with Shaun Simpson finally being beaten in the second moto Frenchman Steven Frossard who managed to stay on the pace for all three motos and gave Simpson his toughest challenge of the year. In the end it was Simpson who edged the overall with two wins to the one of Frossard. Estonian Tanel Leok recorded 3-5-3 finishes taking third overall and maintaining his second place in the standings with the series at the halfway point. It was Martin Barr and Gert Krestinov who rounded out the top 5 overall with fourth and fifth place respectively.
The event also included the third round of the Veterans Championship and as expected series leader Ryan Voase won all three motos on his Kawasaki ahead of Phil Mercer on the IDS Transport KTM, whilst GL12 Yamaha’s Brian Wheeler kept in contention with 5-3-3 finishes.
The Championship now heads to a new venue at the Blaxhall Circuit near Woodbridge in the East of England in less than three weeks’ time for the next round on the 28th June.