Emotional Brookthorpe win for Hockey! 2022 AMCA British Motocross Championship Round 6 – Race Report & Results

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With the intended choice of Foxhill becoming unavailable due to unforeseen circumstances, it left the AMCA frantically searching for a new venue to host the penultimate round of their 2022 British Motocross Championship sponsored by Dunlop.

Report, Images and Interviews by Mike Wood – Corey Hockey Video by Summit Moto

Thankfully the Cheltenham Spa MXC then stepped forward, kindly offering the use of their Brookthorpe circuit and despite the very short notice, what a fantastic event they promoted. On both days of action and despite the recent extreme heat, track conditions were absolutely spot on and in recognition of their efforts, the riders present then responded by producing a weekend of top class racing.

Opening up proceedings was the always exciting 125cc class and entering this penultimate round, series leader Matt Bayliss was boasting a very nice 68 point advantage at the top. However although Matt was to go onto win 4 of the 5 Brookthorpe moto’s, his Championship advantage as now been cut in half and is only 32 points! The reason for that reduction was due to a rather embarrassing moto three incident when he ran out of fuel on the final lap when holding a big lead! Although Matt did return to the pits, refuel and still finish the contest in a distant last place, he was disqualified from the results! In that race, Luke Dean was to bag the win and with another title rival Chris Povey going missing early on due to mechanical issues it was Jordan Wright, Matt Ridgway, Joel Fisher, Yarin Evans and Wesley McGavin who filled the top six.

Despite that hiccup for both Bayliss and Povey, they were still to be major players in the remaining clashes along with the excellent Dean, Ridgway and Wright. Indeed throughout the weekend, both Povey and Ridgway also enjoyed bagging a cheeky holeshot or two to help them along the way and earn eventual podium placings. So with five places to be filled on that coveted box it was FiveTwo Racing Fantic pilot Dean who despite being unhappy with his starts still raced hard for his points and took top step. Dean was to be joined by Wright who has been a revelation since jumping aboard the LRT Yamaha, Ridgway, Bayliss and Povey. With one round of this super series to go, Bayliss sits top on 1075 with Dean on 1043 and the only other rider who can mathematically clinch the title. Despite suffering a moto one DNF due to a broken throttle, Fisher still tops the 125cc Youth Championship on 1023 points with Evans next up on 986 and Wesley McGavin in 3rd on 892.

What a memorable weekend it was to be for MX2 Midwest Racing Husqvarna pilot Corey Hockey. Winning his first ever AMCA Championship moto in the opening contest, Corey appeared to certainly enjoy the sweet taste of success! Victorious in another two races and backing it up with a brace of runners-up spots, that was enough to also earn him a richly deserved maiden AMCA Championship overall success, well done Corey. The only other MX2 moto winner at Brookthorpe was the fast and very exciting Tommy Alba on that 2013 250cc 2T KTM, enough to earn him 2nd overall ahead of the reigning Champion Shane Carless. For Carless, this round six was to be another serious test of his resolve and determination, still suffering from immense pain after a big crash during the previous round three weeks earlier at Lower Drayton when he broke four ribs and three vertebrae! However typical of the Champion’s character, he dug very deep to go 6/5/3/3/3 and earn 3rd overall, a great result. Right in the mix and providing great entertainment with his spectacular style, Rory Jones took 4th overall with the very experienced Ray Rowson rolling back the year’s and taking 5th.

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Whilst Rowson was clearly enjoying himself and even leading the last Brookthorpe moto early on, the weekend was to finish painfully for season-long Championship contender Henry Williams and top six runner Jake Preston. Involved in a big collision on turn one of the last moto, Henry suffered a suspected broken leg whilst Jake had a suspected broken elbow, so here’s hoping these two lads have a speedy recovery!. So in the title stakes, Alba has cut leader Carless advantage down to a catchable 20 points with Williams, despite that last race crash still holding 3rd. However with Brookthorpe winner Hockey already announcing that he will not be at the final round due to other commitments, Jones now looks set to overhaul Williams in the race for the bronze medal slot. Over in the MX2 Cup competition, Cory McShane with another strong showing at Brookthorpe has already sealed top position ahead of Adam Cook.

Rory Jones(231) and Shane Carless battling in MX2

Going into the Brookthorpe event, just 7 points separated Gary Davies, Shane Holmes and defending Champion Phil Mercer at the top of the Vets Championship table. Incredibly after another five frantic clashes, that gap is still exactly the same ensuring that the final round should be an absolute thriller! At round six, Mercer (2), Davies (2) and Holmes, despite his distinct power disadvantage by only riding on a Honda 250F took the moto wins. Indeed Holmes success in the opening race of day two was particularly special as he got past Davies then reeled in Mercer in super style,snatching the victory by the very narrowest of margins. Crucially though, Mercer took the last race win after passing both of his title rivals in determined style, a result which was to give him the podium top slot after finishing the meeting level on 237 points with Davies. For Phil though the Brookthorpe action was far from straightforward, especially moto two on Saturday! Chasing Davies for the lead, Phil crashed hard on more than one occasion, openly admitting afterwards that the conclusion of race was just a blurr, ringing a few bells! Somehow despite suffering a heavy blow to his head, he still managed to pass Brian Staples and Matt Chaplin on final lap and earn a 4th place finish! With five podium places available, local residents Simon and James Lane enjoyed their Brookthorpe adventure to bag a well deserved 4th and 5th overall respectively. Although Mercer still has work to do in the main Vets class, he has done just about enough to earn the Over 50’s class title, currently 136 points clear of Staples with Alan Reese.

There was no doubting the Youth 85cc winner at Brookthorpe as the superb Ollie Bubb strolled to five big moto victories. However Bubb has ACU Championship duties as well in 2022 and having already missed one round, he has announced that he will also not be at the AMCA Finale in two weeks’ time. So that means the title will go to either Jack Evans, Sebby Moore or Will Turner who along with Oakley Kettle and Wyatt McGregor produced some great racing at Brookthorpe. Moore (2), Kettle, McGregor and Turner took the opportunity to chase the flying Bubb home in the process also indulging in their own all-action motocross battle.So the podium was Bubb, McGregor, Moore, Turner and Evans but in the title race, Evans is the pacesetter on 956 points from Moore 945 and Turner 922 Over in the SW85cc class, Oliver Bebb scored another overall win to move 26 points clear of Harley Piper at the top. This title is certainly going to one of these two tiny pilots.

Although MX1 maybe low in numbers, it’s certainly very high in quality with the top three of Luke Burton, James Dodd and Josh Waterman having produced an enthralling season-long battle in the race for the title. Incredibly going into the last round at Nympsfield, there is just 6 points separating those aces. Leading the way is Burton thanks to a simply stunning run of form which as seen him win 12 of the last 13 moto’s contested. Those results mean that Burton has turned a 20 point deficit into a single point advantage, replacing Waterman at the top whilst Dodd is just a further 5 points in arrears.

At Brookthorpe, Burton was simply immense, leading all five moto’s for pretty much the entire duration and only being briefly headed by Dodd in both the first and last clashes of the weekend. On Saturday, Dodd got the better of Waterman to earn 2nd place in all three moto’s before the roles were reversed on day two. Taking 4th overall in this class was Sion Talbot who enjoyed some great tussles with Adam Wells and Mark Roberts. Following his Brookthorpe showing, Talbot has also wrapped up the separately scored MX1 Cup.

So, it’s now onto the Finale at Nympsfield on Sunday, September 4th. With 8 out the 10 titles on offer still to be decided, It’s going to be a tense but very exciting day!

Results

MX1

Pos	Competitor	Points	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5
1	Luke Burton	250	50	50	50	50	50
2	James Dodd	231	47	47	47	45	45
3	Josh Waterman	229	45	45	45	47	47
4	Sion Talbot	211	43	43	41	41	43
5	Adam Wells	209	41	41	43	43	41
6	Mark Roberts	189	35	37	39	39	39
7	Rory Merchant	146	37	35	–	37	37
8	Mark Young	78	39	39	–	–	–

MX2

Pos	Competitor	Points	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5
1	Corey Hockey	244	50	47	50	50	47
2	Tommy Alba	235	45	50	43	47	50
3	Shane Carless	215	39	41	45	45	45
4	Rory Jones	211	37	45	47	41	41
5	Ray Rowson	205	43	39	41	39	43
6	Jack Timms	181	41	33	35	37	35
7	Cory Mcshane	166	35	28	37	27	39
8	Harry Linton	164	33	35	33	26	37
9	Henry Williams	158	47	43	25	43	–
10	Lee Truman	148	30	30	31	24	33
11	Brooklyn Evans	146	29	31	30	31	25
12	Zac Stealey	142	27	29	27	28	31
13	Tomos Wright	130	28	27	24	22	29
14	Jake Preston	122	31	37	29	25	–
15	Jaydon Murphy	118	–	26	39	33	20
16	Rhys Walker	117	21	22	21	23	30
17	Tim Burrows	113	24	23	20	19	27
18	Joe Russell	109	22	21	22	20	24
19	McKenzie Marshall	102	–	25	28	30	19
20	Logan Wilcox	100	26	19	26	29	–
21	Macauley Davies	97	19	16	18	18	26
22	Keelan Southwood	95	18	18	19	17	23
23	Martin Jones	92	–	20	23	21	28
24	Ben White	89	20	17	16	15	21
25	Aaron Collins	85	17	15	15	16	22
26	Billy Duke	66	25	24	17	–	–
27	Adam Cook	35	–	–	–	35	–
28	Luke Newman	23	23	–	–	–	–

125’s

Pos	Competitor	Points	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5
1	Luke Dean	236	47	47	50	45	47
2	Jordan Wright	219	43	43	47	43	43
3	Matt Ridgway	209	41	41	45	41	41
4	Matthew Bayliss	200	50	50	–	50	50
5	Chris Povey	182	45	45	–	47	45
6	Liam Gale	175	39	30	30	39	37
7	Yarin Evans	168	37	22	41	33	35
8	Wesley McGavin	162	29	37	39	26	31
9	Harry Ridgway	159	33	29	33	31	33
10	Joel Fisher	158	–	39	43	37	39
11	Cameron Jackson	157	31	35	35	30	26
12	Troy Jones	145	22	33	37	23	30
13	Joe Wright	141	30	31	31	29	20
14	Benjamin Sullivan	134	28	27	25	27	27
15	Olly Hathaway	131	25	25	29	24	28
16	Logan Jay Powell	129	26	23	26	25	29
17	George Pool	120	24	24	27	21	24
18	Joe Jordan	118	27	28	18	20	25
19	Sion Wright	105	–	26	28	28	23
20	Jamie Johnson	101	19	17	24	19	22
21	Jack Jordan	100	20	20	21	18	21
22	Lewis Dowdeswell	92	35	–	22	35	–
23	Alfie Bebb	91	18	18	19	17	19
24	Harry Bebb	89	23	21	23	22	–
25	Zachary Church	60	21	19	20	–	–

Vets

Pos	Competitor	Points	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5
1	Phil Mercer	237	50	43	47	47	50
2	Gary Davies	237	45	50	50	45	47
3	Shane Holmes	234	47	47	45	50	45
4	Simon Lane	211	41	45	41	43	41
5	James Lane	207	43	37	43	41	43
6	Matthew Chaplin	191	37	41	35	39	39
7	Brian Staples	191	39	39	39	37	37
8	Richard Tudor	175	35	35	37	35	33
9	Shaun Brooker	167	33	33	33	33	35
10	Ryan Thomas	151	31	31	27	31	31
11	Stephen Sankey	146	29	29	30	29	29
12	Russell Grove	138	27	25	28	28	30
13	Alan Reese	133	28	26	26	26	27
14	David Bullock	132	26	27	24	27	28
15	Stuart Kilmarten	125	25	24	25	25	26
16	Stephen Marlow	115	24	30	31	30	–
17	Jamie Smith	87	30	28	29	–	–

85’s

Pos	Competitor	Points	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5
1	Ollie Bubb	250	50	50	50	50	50
2	Wyatt McGregor	223	45	45	41	47	45
3	Sebby Moore	221	47	39	43	45	47
4	Will Turner	213	43	41	47	39	43
5	Jack Evans	209	39	43	45	41	41
6	Oakley Kettle	209	41	47	39	43	39
7	George Bromley	185	37	37	37	37	37
8	Oliver Bebb	171	33	35	33	35	35
9	Harley Piper	169	35	33	35	33	33
10	Marcus Shaw	155	31	31	31	31	31
11	Lewis Day	144	28	29	28	30	29
12	Alfie Finch	143	29	30	29	27	28
13	Tyler Lane	138	27	28	27	29	27
14	Harvey Hunt	118	30	–	30	28	30