News

ws-logo shield text

Race Report – Final round of The Maxxis British Motocross Championship

 James Foxhills 1

 

This weekend we headed for the 8th and final round of the Maxxis British Championship at the fantastic, natural venue of Foxhills in Wiltshire. There was still a lot to play for in all classes and our aim of the day was for James Harrison to finish top 10 overall in MX1 and for Josh to score his first championship points in MX2. Dan Thornhill was medically advised to sit this race out due to back and neck injuries sustained in August, which was such a shame as Dan was sitting 12th in the championship hunt before racing started.

MX1 – James started the day on a slippery track with a 14th place in qualifying. We always know he has more in the tank so were still looking forward to strong results.

Race 1 kicked off and James had an incredible start, very nearly getting the holeshot and rounding the first few turns in 2nd place. By the end of lap one James was 3rd and looking very comfortable, battling with Tommy Searle until lap 3 for position until Tommy passed James, leaving him a comfortable 4th for a number of laps. The chasing pack of ex-British Champions and GP winners, such as Steven Lenoir and Tanel Leok, were closing and passed James around mid-race. But none of them got away and James kept battling hard til the end for an awesome 8th place.

Race 2 and James rounded the first few corners in 11th place – still a great start, just not as good as race 1! As the track was quite dry and hard by now, the race turned into somewhat of a precession as everyone was running similar lap times. James tried hard to close on Ashley Wilde in 10th but couldn’t quite get close enough and finished 11th at the flag.

8th and 11th gave James a brilliant 9th overall on the day and moved him up to 12th in the final British MX1 standings.

Dan dropped 3 places in the championship due to not racing and still finished a very good 15th place in the final points.

MX2 – Josh has had a few guest rides in the Maxxis MX2 championship as his focus has been on the Michelin Nationals MX2 Cup. This was his 4th attempt in the class and the aim was to finish top 20 and score some precious British Championship points. Qualifying went pretty good for Josh, with a 25th place.

Race 1 and Josh got off the line ok, holding around 22nd place early on and getting close to a point scoring position on a few occasions, before finishing 23rd. The most pleasing thing about race 1, was that Josh was looking much more at home with the fastest MX2 riders in Britain and was well set up for race 2.

Race 2 and another similar start for Josh in around 23rd place. Josh then set about the group in front of him and batted really hard to move into the top 20 around mid-race distance. He was looking comfortable in 19th place with 4 laps to go and had a good lead over Buildbase Honda rider, Carlton Husband. The team’s nerves were frayed as Josh entered the last lap, praying that he held position and didn’t make any mistakes. Thankfully Josh brought it home in 19th place for 2 precious British Championship points. So pleased for him and what a great way to go into the winter break.

So that’s a wrap. A great year overall, sad for Dan to end it with injury but so pleased for James and Josh to end on a high.

Josh Coleman – “Today was a positive way to end the season. After fighting to score points at the three rounds I’ve contested in this year, I managed to get the job done today. It makes all the hard work that I’ve been putting in worthwhile and now I can look forward to next season knowing where I’m at and what I need to continue working on. I cannot thank the whole Cab Screens LiuGong Husqvarna team enough for everyone's efforts and what a fun season it has been. Bring on 2017”

James Harrison – “Foxhills was a decent day for me, the track had changed quite a bit since I last raced there so I was excited to ride it! Qualifying went ok with 14th. First race I pulled a good start and narrowly missed out on the holeshot. I managed to run top 3 for a while which was really cool coming home in 8th. Second moto started around 10th and came home 11th for 9th overall. The track was very hard to gain time on but I had a positive day and I'm happy with 12th in the championship for my rookie season”

Lee Webber, Team Manager – “Fantastic finale to what's been a really enjoyable season. Great to see Josh get those elusive points, that will give him huge confidence going in to next season. As for James, we had been talking about how important starts are now and he spent some time in the week working on them and did that pay dividends in the first race. It was great to see him almost holeshot race 1 and go head to head with the new MX1 champ for two laps. Gutted to not see Dan racing at the last round but he has more than done his bit for the team this year and he will be better for it come the start of winter training. Work for next season started months ago and whilst we take a few weeks off to reflect on the season and recharge the batteries, I can't wait to get started with testing and training in the winter months and make sure that we keep improving as a team”

 

Josh Foxhills 2