The touch paper has been lit, and the Dirt Store Racing team’s maiden season with Triumph UK&I opened last weekend at BP Pulse Live in Birmingham for Round 1 of the Arenacross World Tour.
Words by Dirt Store Triumph Racing – Images by Cult Moto
The team’s solo entrant, Tommy Searle, lined up to debut the 2025 Triumph TF 250-X alongside a wealth of Arenacross talent. The track looked tight and technical, as expected for an AX event, but the team were eager to get the season underway.
Tommy eased into the morning session, placing P14 in qualifying just 0.1s shy of breaking the top 10. This was enough to warm up to the track and was a solid building block for the evening show.
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A strong start in the Sprint Heat put Tommy into P3 on the opening laps, however, passes from Yannis Irsuti and Dean Wilson pushed him back to fifth. Searle rode consistently for the remainder of the race to close out P5.
In the last Heat Race of the night, Tommy again got a great jump to pull the holeshot through turn 1. The podium positions were hotly contested in the opening 3 laps, with a side by side run through the whoops between Searle, Zaragoza and Chatfield. Tommy unfortunately slipped back behind the pair and brought home another P5.
Despite solid 5-5 scores, Searle narrowly missed out on advancing straight to the main event and was relegated to the Head-to-Head (H2H) rounds.
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The opening H2H saw Tommy face-off with Ben Clayton. Another holeshot and a smooth, confident lap put the Triumph rider through to the Semi’s. A similar performance against Joe Clayton gave Searle a shot at the H2H final, and a potential gateway through the Main Event.
Tensions were high heading into the H2H final. However, a sensational start, followed by a roar from the crowd as competitor Steven Clark hit the gate, was all the advantage Searle needed to seal the deal and progress to the final race of the night.
Sadly, starting from the back row in the main event meant Searle’s string of successful starts came to an end. Tommy was at the back of the pack through turn 1 with an uphill battle ahead. He did well to pick off positions and had worked up to another fifth place by lap 4. This good run was eventually brought to a halt when Searle lost the front end after the finish line jump, resulting in a DNF.
Birmingham was a night of great race starts, and a solid start to the Championship overall. The main event didn’t go to plan but after a hard fought night for Tommy, he currently sits in P6 for the British Pro Tour title and P12 in the World Tour.
The team are pleased with the Triumph debut and have already seen great potential from the TF 250-X heading into the next round at Wembley. Thankfully there is no serious damage for Tommy, and he is eager to get the season momentum going and climb up through the points table.
Thank you to our team partners and sponsors for the support in 2025. We have a long season ahead and are excited to bring home strong results this year! We will have more updates following Round 2 on January 18th.
