MX Diary

Published: 07th January 2009

ONE of the very well known names in sidecar manufacturers, EML from Holland, is making a welcome return under the direction of Jan op’t Hoog. Dutch crew, Thijs and Roy Derks, recently tested the new bike (pictured) and their initial impressions were very favourable.

Published: 07th January 2009

WORLD Ladies Champ, Livia Lancelot, will line up against the boys at Valence next month. Keen to present a world champion in each class – the event will feature separate races for 250s and 450s with a Superfinal showdown in a format promoted so successfully for several years at Hawkstone – MC Valence has found the perfect solution to Tyla Rattray’s defection stateside with their national heroine.

Published: 02nd January 2009

LONG hair is out! This was just one of the new regulations passed by the Motocross GP Commission when it convened in Monaco on the weekend of the Awards Ceremony at the beginning of December. The new ruling, effective from yesterday (January 1), reads: “Long hair must be contained within the helmet”, so girls like American Ashley Fiolek, whose pony tail swung in the wind last year, will have to find some way of wrapping up her hair in future.

Published: 02nd January 2009

INVITED to contest the final round of the Guadeloupian Motocross Championship in the run up to Christmas, Sebastien Pourcel damaged his shoulder and hip after a crash and, as a result, will have to rest at home for a month. Invited for a week in the Caribbean with several other French riders, including team-mate Maxime Emery and GP rider Jeremy Tarroux, Sebastien enjoyed the pleasant weather there and relaxed for a few days after a long season.

Published: 18th December 2008

THE World MX1/M2 Championship schedule was reduced by one round last week when the FIM and then Youthstream announced the cencellation of the South African GP.

Published: 18th December 2008

CHRISTMAS came a few days early for the GP stars last weekend when Youthstream announced the list of 31 approved teams, the riders and their numbers for the 2009 MX1 and MX2 world championships.

Published: 11th December 2008

ANTONIO Cairoli, the two-time World MX2 Champion, rated by many as one of the three fastest motocross racers in the world today, has finally started training and practicing on the bike, now fully healed from the 2008 season-ending knee injury that he suffered at the South African GP round back in July.

Published: 11th December 2008

THE FIM has announced that Italian clothing manufacturer, AXO Sport Spa, has been chosen as provider of official FIM gear for all the FIM delegates and officials. This agreement is valid until 2011. As clothing provider of the FIM, AXO Sport Spa is assigned by the FIM all necessary clothing to its delegates and officials on duty during FIM World Championship and Prize events. AXO Sport will benefit from all the FIM events and from the new FIM communication platform.

Published: 04th December 2008

KTM was left reeling last week when World MX2 Champion, Tyla Rattray, quit the factory team to sign for Pro-Circuit Kawasaki in America. The South African, who has never raced anything other than KTM since he came to Europe as a 15-year-old, had been lined up to race alongside Max Nagl in the factory MX1 squad and was being touted as a potential champion at his first attempt.

Published: 04th December 2008

THE GP line-up for 2009 is almost complete, and the tendency towards a major league MX1 class with MX2 as a feeder class is undeniable.

Published: 27th November 2008

FUCHS Silkolene and ACU Events Ltd used the platform of the recent Dirt Bike Show to announce an enhanced relationship between the two companies with Silkolene now being the official oil and lubricant supplier to the Maxxis ACU British Motocross Championship.

Published: 27th November 2008

WELL, it’s that time of the year when new sidecar teams and partnerships are formed, decisions are beginning on what bike to ride next season and team colours are chosen. It is, however, also time to look back on this year’s achievements and to recognise them at the annual awards presentation and the aim of the 19th annual Sidecar Motocross Association (SMCA) Dinner Dance was to do just that.

Published: 19th November 2008

THE Mantova Starcross has been a permanent fixture on the calendar for 25-years, and the 26th edition on February 7/8 will again open the European motocross season.

Published: 19th November 2008

KATHERINE Prumm, the World Cup winner of 2006/ 2007, is back on the sick list after damaging three vertebrae in a practice crash back home in New Zealand.

Published: 13th November 2008

TWO-times a GP winner, Cedric Melotte completes the Honda factory line-up for next season. Melotte, the 30-year-old who has been struggling manfully on the out-classed Aprilia twin for the past two years, will be back in the hunt for World MX1 honours next year after signing last week to race in 2009 for the British CAS Honda team.

Published: 13th November 2008

KATHERINE Prumm, Women’s World Cup champion in 2006 and 2007, will be racing out of the UK next year as she strives to regain her throne. The 20-year-old Kiwi (pictured left), whose hopes of the first official world championship crown were dashed last summer by injury, is back on a bike in New Zealand after her knee operation and is raring to go – for Steve Dixon’s Utag Yamaha team!

Published: 06th November 2008

LONG gone are the days when the leading teams contested races every weekend in the depressing Flemish sand of northern Belgium. Nowadays they seek the sun in Spain, Italy and southern France, and at the end of February, just one month before the first GP, the factory-backed squads will converge for the eighth consecutive year on the hillside track overlooking the Les Aureats industrial estate on the outskirts of Valence, 80-kilometres south of Lyon.

Published: 06th November 2008

JOSH Coppins was the dominant rider of the weekend in the annual international race at Taupo back home in his native New Zealand, scoring clear-cut wins in both MX1 motos over Scot Billy MacKenzie, before the CAS Honda rider pushed him to the limits in the Feature race at the end of the programme.

Published: 30th October 2008

BRITISH off-road fans will witness a real festival of action at Mallory Park next May as RHL Activities promote not only the MX1/MX2 GP and a round of the Veteran World Cup but have also taken on the World and European Supermoto series – all in a single weekend on May 30/31!

Published: 30th October 2008

OUT of a GP ride after the closure of the Suzuki Swift team last week, Elliott Banks-Browne and Brad Anderson have each quickly found rides for 2009, but each will race predominantly in the UK.