Merry Easter my little roost rabbits!
Before I give you the dirt on this weekend’s Easter action let’s have a quick rewind to see what went down in South America last Sunday…
Argentina is the spiritual home of corned beef, military blokes in big hats and, as surprising as it sounds, pretty good motocross tracks. Neuquen doesn’t quite conjure up the same mental images as, say, Hawkstone Park or Foxhill but the GP of Patagonia wasn’t ‘alf bad.
Wide like a Brazilian bride’s ass with more lines than a Columbian cartel, there was actually passing and stuff. AKA racing. After Qatar and Thailand it was a refreshing change.
Some things don’t change though and Paul Malin’s commentary still makes me want to remove my eardrums with a fork spring. He did meteorology – ‘it’s rainy, it’s sunny, it’s windy’. He did geography – ‘it’s in the centre of Argentina, near the border with Chile’. He did colours – ‘yellow Suzuki, green Kawasaki, blue Yamaha etc’. In his prime he could stretch a throttle cable like a bloody hero but he sucks behind a mic.
Saying that, any man who can coin the phrase ‘whiskey rodeo’ isn’t beyond hope. I’ve got a mental image of red-bearded men in checked skirts riding hairy cows with big horns.
MX2 didn’t go to Jeffrey Herlings. The Dutchman went down like a sack of shoite in the opening race and trashed his Red Bull KTM but he bounced back to win the sixth moto of the season to retain his red series leader’s plate.
See his crash here
Herlings is quite possibly the fastest man in the world off-road on two wheels and KTM’s reluctance to let him move up to MXGP and beat team-mate Antonio Cairoli may be a smooth move by the Austrians but it’s only delaying the inevitable.
Special mention has to go to 18-year-old Adam Sterry. In his GP debut the Brit almost yanked the holey in the opener and showed the speed to run top-10. The kid’s special.
MXGP was ace. Even Maler couldn’t kill that. Tony the Tiger beat Ryan the Lion but it was ‘The Blue’ Max Nagl who marched into Argentina to take the win. Sulky Belgian Clement Desalle was second and keeps the red plate. Did I say he was sulky? Sorry, I meant he’s got a face like a slapped arse.
A bit further north it was Ryan Dungey who won as the AMA SX series smashed into St Louis. The Red Bull KTM rider took the holeshot and checked out in the Edward Jones Dome to extend his lead to 80 points with four rounds to run. The Dirt Doctor could take a fill-in ride and bring it home from here.
Marvellous Marvin Musquin played smashio in the 250SX class, doing a gate-to-flag job of his own. He leads the East Coast division by 20 points with just one round to go in New Jersey on April 25.
The AMA SX machines now get their first weekend off since January 3 before the series heads to Houston where the West Coast 250cc guys will pick up again.
Back in Blighty the Maxxis men are in action at Lyng. I’m not saying it’s flat or owt in them there parts but the ‘hill’ bit of the Cadder’s Hill track is the highest point in Norfolk. Locals get nosebleeds at the summit. Come the floods I’m going to build a big wooden boat at the top and invite two of every species to come aboard.
The Dirt Doc loves the journey to Lyng, specifically how the centuries roll away the deeper into Norfolk you get until the fields are full of smock-wearing peasants planting turnips and rosy-cheeked strumpets herding geese.
The circuit’s equally old-school. Sandy and super-tough, this should see the British championship get back on track after last month’s Hilton Park skidmark. The only bad thing I’ve got to say about Lyng is it’s the track that ended Maler’s racing career – and pushed him into commentating.
There’s a rumour that local yokel Jake Nicholls (Wilvo Forkrent KTM) will return to action after breaking his arm at a pre-season international but even if he does Shaun Simpson (Hitachi Revo KTM UK) will start favourite in MX1.
Woody loves the sand. How much? Remember when you were a nipper and left the lid off your tortoise-shaped sand pit? And all the local kitties went toilet in it? Well Shaun wasn’t bothered – he used the doo-doo to build a killer set of whoops.
MX2 should be between series leader Ben Watson (Hitachi Revo KTM UK) and the Sterry Bomb (Wilvo Forkrent KTM). Watson won both races last time out but Sterry – fresh from his Argentine exploits – will be uber-confident and let’s not forget he won a race at Lyng last year.
If you fancy a bit of time-travelling then set your TARDIS sat-nav to NR9 5QZ…
Words: TDD Images: Nuno Laranjeira