United Kingdom (10/23/2007)
- 2007 MX1 World motocross champion
Steve Ramon ended his victorious season in the
perfect way by winning the 25th anniversary
beach race. The Belgian factory Suzuki rider
headed home New Zealand’s Josh Coppins,
by 3 minutes when the race was prematurely ended
after 2 hours 20 minutes due to safety considerations.
Third place went to British Four Stroke champion
Brad Anderson who made it on the podium for
the third consecutive year.
The Optoma Loans Holeshot prize was claimed
by American Mike Brown who was first past the
Optoma Loans boards, situated just before the
first dune, on his 450cc CAS Honda. The 2007
MX2 class Maxxis British Motocross champion
was in the running for a top three finish before
the engine on his bike started making ominous
noises and he chose to retire ‘“
albeit a $1000 better off !
With the Weston weather honoring the anniversary
weekend with sunshine and blue skies a huge
crowd was tempted to the beach over both days
of the beach race. Nearly 55,000 fans watched
the Quads, Sidecars, and Solos battle it out
on the North Somerset coastline, giving a weekend
total attendance of over 100,000.
On Saturday it was Paul Winrow who reclaimed
his title of Quadmaster of Weston, when he took
victory by nearly four minutes over Jeremie
Warnia. Winrow had built up a healthy lead in
the early stages before having to pit to change
a wheel allowing the hard charging French Suzuki
rider to close up and move into first position.
It looked as if this would be the case right
to the flag, but Winrow was able to capitalize
when his rival also hit mechanical gremlins
and was forced to stop for adjustments. Just
one lap adrift was Carl Bunce who rode a superb
race for third at the checkered flag.
The H Bomb Squad, Freestyle Motocross team put
on an awesome display on both days with Caleb
Moore back flipping his quad more than six times
over the weekend and ‘˜finishing
the job’™ that they started three
years ago. He was ably backed up by his younger
brother Colten, while solo freestyler Jimmy
Fitzpatrick also wowed the crowd with some spectacular
stunts. Highlight of the show was when Moore
and Fitzpatrick flipped both bikes simultaneously
just yards apart ‘“ amazing !!!!
One disappointing note for the weekend was the
non-appearance of david Knight and Stefan Everts
‘“ both of whom were desperate to
ride but prevented by very different reasons.
Gareth Hockey, Director of RHL Activities said,
‘œThe reason Stefan could not come
was he was in a reality TV show which was unfortunately
put back two weeks from the original date. We
were hoping he would be voted out of the show
but it was not to be and at the moment he is
still in there. We had contracted Stefan to
ride at Weston but he had made the agreement
to appear in the TV show before our terms had
been accepted and had to honor it, so it was
out of our hands.
David as I am sure you realize has been competing
in the GNCC in America and with the final race
coming up this week and him needing a twelfth
place to clinch the series, KTM did not want
him to risk any kind of injury by taking part
in the beach race.
It was very unfortunate that both riders could
not make it but I am sure that the spectators
enjoyed the performances that Steve Ramon and
Josh Coppins gave. We apologize that two star
riders did not appear but we will make every
attempt to get Stefan and David to the race
in 2008 along with other top GP riders to keep
this event at the level we have achieved.’
Full results are available at the official website;
www.wbruk.com
