Current Red Bull KTM motocross rider Jonathan Barragan last week signed a new contract to represent the company in the FIM MX1 World Championship for another two years. The soon-to-be 21 year old has been riding in ‘orange’ since 2001 and will now extend his association to eight seasons.

Italy is not a lucky round for French Yves Demaria (FRA, KTM), limping around the paddock after the injury of Markelo. He is ninth in the overall standings where it is home rider Cristian Beggi (ITA, Honda) on top. The Italian wins both motos, always followed by countryman Daniele Bricca (ITA, Honda) who is second overall. Third place goes to Marc Ristori (SUI, Honda), combining two fourth places. The top five of the overall standings ends with former 500 cc World Champion Andrea Bartolini (ITA, Yamaha) in fourth place, after a third place in race 1 and a seventh place in race 2, and Martin Zerava (CZE, Honda), getting two fifth place finishes.

Yesterday the FIM (Fédération Internationale de Moto- cyclisme) published the entry list for the Grand Prix of Republic of South Africa - the 10th leg of the FIM Motocross World Championship 2006 - which is held in Sun City (RSA) on 16th July:

Kawasaki Racing Team have inked a two year deal with their twenty year old Estonian rider Tanel Leok that will see the MX1 World Championship Grand Prix rider now extend his contact to ride for the Dutch based team of Jan de Groot until the end of the 2008 season.

With the announced retirement of nine times motocross world champion Stefan Everts at the end of this season, Yamaha is very pleased to have signed both Joshua Coppins and Marc de Reuver for the 2007 MX1 world championship season. The new signings will have a tremendous challenge in trying to maintain the team’s past and present winning success, but Yamaha believe that the 2005 MX1 vice world champion Joshua Coppins (29 yrs, New Zealand) and this year’s MX2 world championship title challenger Marc de Reuver (23 yrs, The Netherlands) both have the speed and talent to become worthy successors in the Yamaha Motocross Team.

In Markelo, Holland, the MX3 World Championship saw Italian Beggi grasping two back to back wins. Demaria and Breugelmans were second and third in the first moto when Ristori and Oddenino completed the top five.

The FIM Women’s Motocross World Cup finished in Uddevalla today.

There is a new World Champion now and it is Katherine Prumm from New Zealand. This is the best way to recover from the injury of five weeks ago: she broke her wrist in America.

From now on people can leave Sweden and get back to normal nights: here the sunlight is on until 11 pm and comes back at 3 in the morning.

There is a lot of time to be active and motocross felt exactly like that today: the day was actually very busy with the FIM Women’s World Cup joining the usual MX races and some spectators came to the track at 7 am already! They actually did the right choice because the area around the circuit got crowded during the day and at the end spectators were 26500 for the entire weekend.

Team Suzuki’s 21 year old Belgian MX1 World Championship star Kevin Strijbos has re-signed for Suzuki for the 2007 and 2008 seasons.

Sven Breugelmans (BEL, KTM) opened the day winning the first moto. Italian Cristian Beggi (ITA, Honda) ended second with his Honda, that was sandwiched between two KTMs: third was Yves Demaria (FRA, KTM), with Marc Ristori (SUI, Honda) and Enrico Oddenino (ITA, Honda) ending the top five.