Clean Sweep for Heyman as SJP Moto Start the Revo MXGB with Podiums
Following a successful weekend at the recent British MXGP round the SJP Moto team were ready to kick off the Revo ACU British Motocross Championship fuelled by Gulf Race Fuels at the hillside venue of Culham in fine style.
Images courtesy of ImageRich Media
Heading into the opening round of the championship the team were looking to start the season strongly. Lining up for the team this season are Archie Jay Girdham in the Small Wheel 85cc class, Josh Vail in the Big Wheel 85cc class, Reece Jones and Charlie Heyman in the Youth 125cc class and Jayden Haigh in the Youth 250cc class.
Saturday started with the qualifying sessions for each class, in the Small Wheel 85cc class Archie was second fastest, in the Big Wheel 85cc class Josh finished the session third fastest, while in the 125cc class Charlie topped the time sheets on pole with Reece fifth fastest and in the 250cc class Jayden was second fastest.
Going into the Saturday races, Archie Jay Girdham rode a great opening moto after coming from around the top 10 on the opening lap, to finishing in second place at the flag. In the second moto Archie was looking for another good moto and after starting well the youngster was inside the top three before dropping to fourth and recovering to third at the finish. The third moto of the day wasn’t run due to a delay in the schedule, the final race was postponed until later in the year.
Josh Vail started the opening race around the top 10 and quickly moved his way up to third place at the finish. In the second race of the day, Josh had another good start and rode a solid race to claim a third-place finish once again. Josh’s third race also wasn’t run due to the delays.
In the 125cc class Charlie and Reece had two races on the Saturday. The opening race couldn’t have started any better with Charlie and Reece running in 1 and 2 on the opening lap, unfortunately Reece suffered a mistake earlier on and pushed hard to recover to a great seventh place at the finish. Meanwhile, Charlie rode a great race to take the opening race win of the season and in took victory by over 15 seconds.
The second race for the 125cc saw Charlie claim another superb start to finish race win, taking the race win by over 35 seconds and never came under pressure from the rest of the field. Reece again rode another solid race to claim a seventh-place finish.
Jayden’s two 250cc class races saw the youngster suffer some bad luck in both races and finished the opening moto in 17th place after suffering a big crash on the opening lap which saw him, and the bike landed on. After remounting Jayden had to pit to straighten the bike before re-joining the race. Still in a lot of pain Jayden headed out on track for the second moto and rode a steady moto to claim 13th after another tough race. Unfortunately, the injury to his back would keep him out of the races on the Sunday.
Sunday morning saw Archie compete his final moto of the weekend and nearly claim the holeshot and challenged at the front all race long to claim third in the moto and third overall on the weekend.
In the Big Wheel 85cc class Josh rode another solid moto after starting inside the top 5 and moving his way up to fourth on the second lap, where he would remain for the rest of the race. Josh’s three solid results gave him a well-deserved third overall to start the season.
In the 125cc class both Charlie and Reece had two races to complete on the Sunday and in the opening moto Charlie came from a top 10 start, just ahead of teammate Reece. Charlie quickly moved forward into the lead by lap three and went onto take the race win by 14 seconds. Reece rode a solid race to claim a seventh-place finish.
In the final race of the weekend Charlie claimed a dominate start to finish race win by nearly 20 seconds and to claim a perfect weekend of 4 race wins. Unfortunately, Reece suffered a heavy crash early in the moto that damaged the bike and dropped him the 9th overall on the weekend.
Leighton Haigh – Team Manager – It’s been a really good first round for the team apart from Jayden who was second fastest in qualifying and then suffered a first lap crash and picked up a back injury and although he tried in the second race, he was unable to complete the weekend. Reece had three great rides to claim 7th place in each race, unfortunately he suffered a big crash in the last race and couldn’t finish the race but was uninjured. Charlie was faultless all weekend and provided a masterclass on the 125cc taking pole and 4 race wins. Archie had a good solid weekend after only getting back on a bike on Thursday after 4 weeks of no riding due to his broken collarbone so you get 3rd overall was great and Josh Vail also rode great all weekend to claim 3rd overall so we can’t complain about how the weekend went.
