‘Loon'y tunes - the French connection
By TMX Archives on 9th Apr 09
WHEN you travel to France for a motocross race, you would rightly expect to find hard-pack terrain, so the choice of a sand track by the French UFO LEP Federation for the opening round of the 2009 IMBA MX1 European Championship came as somewhat of a surprise. Naturally, the sand of Loon-Plage, Dunkirk, did not help the chances of the home riders but was instead the perfect choice for the competing Dutch and Belgian riders and it was former GP rider, Heikki Van den Berg who took the honours at round one, recording a wheel-perfect, three-ride maximum ahead of Davit Cools and reigning champ, Frank Jansen-Teitz.
For the Brits the going was tough, but it did not prevent Ben Saunders from taking a superb fifth overall with David Campbell 12th, Clinton Barrs 14th and Richard Meakin 16th. Brad O'Leary was 21st after suffering a seized KTM engine in moto two.
Right from the off, Dutch Honda rider Van den Berg made his intentions perfectly clear by producing a scorching holeshot. However, right on his tail, was a very determined O'Leary while his fellow Brits were all flying the AMCA flag in style as Barrs held third, Saunders fifth and debutants, Campbell and Meakin, in eighth and 12th place respectively.
Though O'Leary refused to let the flying Dutchman Van den Berg get away, his British team-mates were beginning to hit trouble. On the very fast Loon-Plage track, Barrs overshot a gigantic sandy berm, going off the track, while Saunders dropped his Kawasaki leaving both riders with it all to do.
At the front, Van den Berg eventually stretched his advantage before racing on to the first IMBA win of the 2009 campaign with O'Leary securing a great second spot ahead of Cools, Jansen-Teitz, top home rider Anthony Saint-Maxin and Arjan Van den Vleuten.
After his earlier spill, Saunders worked very hard for seventh as Campbell took 11th, Barrs 13th and Meakin,
in his debut IMBA ride, 16th.
IMBA MX1 EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIP
Rd 1 – Loon-Plage, Dunkirk, FRANCE
MOTO ONE: 1 Heikki Van den Berg (NL), 2 Brad O'LEARY (GB), 3 Davit Cools (B), 4 Frank Jansen-Teitz (D), 5 Anthony Maxin-Saint (F), 6 Arjan Van den Vleuten (NL), 7 Ben SAUNDERS (GB), 8 Ivan Schepers (NL), 9 Kenny Van Rooji (NL), 10 Kai Wirtz (D), 11 David CAMPBELL (GB), 12 Stijn Verstrepen (NL), 13 Clinton BARRS (GB), 14 Robin Termeer (NL), 15 Jakob Straede (Denmark), 16 Richard MEAKIN (GB), 17 Frederic Delhuille (F), 18 Kris Fleerakers (B), 19 Alexander Farkas (D), 20 Jarno Verhorevoort (NL).
MOTO TWO: 1 Van den Berg, 2 Cools, 3 Verhorevoort, 4 Van Rooji, 5 Jansen-Teitz, 6 Saunders, 7 Schepers, 8 Termeer, 9 Delhuille, 10 Wirtz, 11 Farkas, 12 CAMPBELL, 13 Sullivan Jore (F), 14 Verstrepen, 15 Maxin-Saint, 16 Straede, 17 MEAKIN, 18 Bohuslav Svatos (CZ), 19 Josef Furar (CZ), 20 BARRS.
MOTO THREE: 1 Van den Berg, 2 Verhorevoort, 3 Cools, 4 Van Rooji, 5 Jansen-Teitz, 6 SAUNDERS, 7 Termeer, 8 Van den Vleuten, 9 Delhuille, 10 Schepers, 11 BARRS, 12 MEAKIN, 13 Wirtz, 14 Straede, 15 Jore, 16 CAMPBELL, 17 Verstrepen, 18 Maxin-Saint, 19 Marc Odenthal (D), 20 Farkas.
OVERALL: 1 Van den Berg 180 points, 2 Cools 154, 3 Jansen-Teitz 137, 4 Van Rooji 131, 5 SAUNDERS 127, 6 Verhorevoort 125, 7 Schepers 115, 8 Termeer 107, 9 Wirtz 99, 10 Delhuille 98, 11 Maxin-Saint 94, 12 Campbell 89, 13 Van den Vleuten 87, 14 BARRS 85, 15 Verstrepen 82, 16 MEAKIN 80, 17 Straede 78, 18 Farkas 76, 19 Jore 73, 20 Lukas Reiter (CZ) 59, 21 O'LEARY 58,...
Britain's David Campbell made a grand entrance, introducing himself to the IMBA MX1 stage with a brace of consistent point-scoring rides to claim 12th place in the series standings after just one round...