2015 Eastern Centre Motocross Championships Round 1

The first round of the 2015 Eastern Centre Motocross Championship took place on Sunday at the ex British Championship venue Wakes Colne. The track was prepared to the highest standards for this championship round. Fully ripped and watered to perfection to have the best possible conditions early on for qualifying at 10am. The juniors went out first and got a few lines set into the track early for the expert riders to follow next.

The Team GH Motorcycles/G&B Finch expert riders rolled out for their timed qualifying and immediately made an impact on the time sheets with team rider Brad Tomlin setting the fastest time of the session on lap 4 with 01:49.501. Brad Woodroffe also set a fast time in lap 3 of 01:49.531 just 3 Hundredths of a second slower than Tomlin to secure 2nd place. Tomlin and Woodroffe were the only two riders to go into the 1min 49s. Brendon Mayer’s set his fastest lap time of the session in lap 1 of 01:52.331 to land him in 11th. Connor Hughes did a good job of setting a 01:53.351 to get 12th in the session being on a 250F making me the 2nd fasted 250F out there.

Race 1 had both Woodroffe and Tomlin starting just outside the top 5 on the first lap. After 2 laps Woodroffe had moved into 2nd and was then chasing down Luke Parker to fight for the win. unfortunately both the riders touched in a turn and Woodroffe ended up going down injuring his hand and forcing him to DNF. Tomlin then moved his way all up through the field to finish a strong 2nd to kick off his championship. Connor Hughes struggled with rear brake issues all race and brought the bike home in 16th. Brendon Mayers didn’t have the best of starts which was really important on the fast wakes c   circuit and got him self back up the order to 13th.

Race 2 had Woodroffe get another good start to be in 3rd by the end of lap 1 and had to fight off a few other riders while dealing with the hand injury picked up in the first race to hold onto 3rd for race 2. Tomlin also had a good start in race 2 and was inside the top 5 before having a small tip over which cost him a bunch of positions leaving him fighting his way back to 8th. Connor Hughes was forced to pull out of race two with on going rear brake issues and Brendon Mayers struggled with starts again but worked his way back to finish a solid 11th.

Race 3 had Tomlin hole-shot followed by fellow team mate Woodroffe for a GH motorcycles/G&B Finch 1 and 2 on the first lap. Syd Bales then slipped past Woodroffe early and Tomlin started to check out building up a good lead. Benstead then got passed Woodroffe and Bales and set after Tomlin to push him back to a 2nd for race 3. Woodroffe then got through Bales and tried to chase down Tomlin but the gap was too much to cross leaving him to finish 3rd again. Brendon Mayers didn’t have his best races in race 3 leaving him in 16th which left him feeling extremely odd as Brendon is normally dangerously fast around the Wakes Colne circuit. Connor Hughes finally got his brake issues sorted out and rode to a 12th in race 3 which is a strong result being on the under powered 250f machine against the bigger 350 and 450 machines.

The overall results for the day were :

-Tomlin             3rd

-Woodroffe        8th

-Mayers           13th

-Hughes          16th

Full listing of results can be found here.

Photos provided by Paul H-Payne and Sophie Brinkley