Red Hot Victories for SJP Moto at FatCat MXGB
Round 6 of the Revo ACU British Motocross Championship fuelled by Gulf Race Fuels saw the SJP Moto team competing at FatCat Moto Parc for the team’s local round of the season. Hot weather leading up to the event during the week and over the race weekend made for challenging conditions for the team’s riders.
Images courtesy of ImageRich Media
FatCat’s would see Charlie Heyman looking to continue his dominance of the Youth 125 class, while Josh Vail came into the weekend looking to close the gap down on in the Big Wheel 85cc Championship standings. In the Saturday qualifying sessions, Charlie topped his group with the fastest lap by nearly 3 seconds. In the Big Wheel 85cc class, Josh finished third fastest just half a second off pole position.
With good qualifying positions, both riders were feeling confident going into the races on Saturday. In the first BW85cc race Josh made a good start and was challenging for the race lead early on. During the whole race, Josh was in a close battle for the win with championship leader Billy Askew and the pair battled until the finish where Josh took second, less than a second off the race victory.
After such a strong first Moto, Josh once again got towards the front of the field on the opening laps of the second race. As the race got into a rhythm, Josh managed to move into the lead, but a small crash as he tried to break away at the front saw him drop to the edge of the top 5 but he quickly battled he way back up to second place by the end of the Moto.
The final Moto on Saturday saw Josh catch and pass the race leader to get into the lead early on and settle into a good flow as he had a race-long battle with Askew. As the Moto progressed Josh managed to open a strong gap and take his first race win of the season by over 15 seconds.
For this weekend, the Youth 125 and Youth 250 classes had been combined and when the gate dropped for the first Moto Charlie quickly got into the lead by the end of the opening lap. Once in the lead, Charlie quickly got into a flow and pulled away at the front and took the win by nearly 20 seconds.
The second and final Youth 125 / 250 race of the Saturday saw another good start by Charlie as he quickly pulled a gap over the rest of the field to take victory by almost 15 seconds.
Sunday saw the temperatures higher than on Saturday and made managing the race’s key. In the final Big Wheel 85 race, Josh made a great jump out of the gate, but ran wide and slipped back to second. During the early laps, Josh challenged for the lead but could not make a pass and rode a steady race in second. On the final lap, race leader Askew made a mistake and crashed allowing Vail to push for the race win but narrowly missed out as the pair crossed the line side by side. The results over the weekend gave Josh second overall.
In the first of the two 125cc races, Charlie made a solid start and was quickly into the lead and began opening a comfortable lead over the rest of the field. During the second half of the race, Charlie back down the pace and maintained the gap at the front to take the win.
The final race saw Charlie take another good start and quickly pull away at the front of the field to produce a master class of riding, claim the overall victory and extend his championship lead.
Leighton Haigh – Team Manager – “What more can I say other than Charlie rode faultlessly all weekend taking 4 race wins and extending his points lead. He rode smart all weekend in the heat, which he normally struggles with. Josh had a great weekend starting with a good qualifying and then a close battle with Billy in the first race. Then in the second race, he went down while passing for the lead and did well to come back to 2nd. In the final race on Saturday, he managed to overcome Billy and take a dominant win. On Sunday he struggled a little with the heat but after Billy’s crashing on the last lap he just missed the win and overall so we could not be happier.
“We hope to also see Reece and Archie both back on their bikes soon after Reece received some positive news this week.”
