This past Saturday saw the first round of the Namibian MX championship held at Gallina. The anticipation by our team was running high as both riders were on ‘new’ bikes. Tommy would for the first time race his 2008 YZ450F with revised handling and engine characteristics and Matthew having moved up from the 50cc automatic clutched bike to a six speed 65cc bike. On top of that, the track was flooded for the past two weeks and a mud race was anticipated.

The Windhoek Moto Cross Club did a fantastic job however to get the track in such a condition that the racing for the day ended up being the best we have experienced in many years.

For Matthew, the practice session was extremely difficult as he would find the remaining mud a hand-full to deal with. This however changed once all the classes had completed their practice session and the track settled down. In the first two heats, Matt had fairly good starts coming around the first corner in second place. He was unfortunately not quite up to speed to challenge the first placed rider, but built up a big gap back to third place. In heat 1 and 2, Matthew had minor falls but was far enough ahead of 3rd to hold on to 2nd position. With some assistance from Reiner Schuster, owner of EE Suspension in Germany, Matthew’s suspension was quickly re-built between heat 2 and 3 which made a tremendous difference in heat 3.

He was still not able to compete for 1st position, but was a lot faster on the now very rough track. His bike lacks top-end speed but that will be rectified come next race meet.

However, for his first outing in 2008 on a 65cc bike, overall second is a fantastic achievement.

Tommy could not wait to get going as he had very high expectations of himself. In heat 1, the start did not go according to plan and would see Tommy in fifth position. He made short work of passing riders ahead of him and by mid race distance was in second place. By now, the leader had built up a massive lead and eventually time ran out and he had to settle for 2nd place.

The second heat went pretty much the same as the first, except that Tommy was up to second early in the heat. He could however not even buy a clean track ahead of him to mount a challenge for the lead. The leaders were well into the lapped riders and it seemed that he would always catch up to them just before a corner. Again he would have to settle for 2nd position.

The 3rd heat and also the premier heat of the day, the King of The Dirt, was one of the most spectacular races seen in Namibia for a long time.

From the outset, it was a case of Tommy swapping places between 1st and 2nd with never more than a few meters between these positions. The racing was very tight and Tommy had to pull every trick out of his hat to make the passes. With only a few minutes remaining, he finally made the pass that stuck and started to open a gap to second place. His fitness was the final nail in the coffins of the other riders and he comfortably won the last heat. Definitely Tommy’s best heat race I have ever watched.

His two 2nd paces and a win placed him overall 2nd in the Open Class and 1st in the King of the Dirt.

A very good weekend for the whole Team and a big thank you must go to all our sponsors that have made it possible for the boys to perform at this level.

THANK YOU
The Team