Round two of the Michelin MX Nationals travels to the iconic Hawkstone Park in Shropshire over the Easter weekend where in the pro classes, favourite in the MX1 must be Cab Screens Deos Group Honda rider Harri Kullas who romped to two convincing wins at round one and had a come from behind third place at last weekend British Championship round at Lyng, writes Dick Law. But he’ll have tough opposition from enduro expert and former MXGP rider Nathan Watson who is a surprise last-minute entry.
The on-form Gert Krestinov, Lewis Tombs, and Mel Pocock will also be pushing hard. But third place rider at round one, Ryan Houghton is suffering from a couple of broken ribs which will be hurting more in the deep sand of Hawkstone, so that will de-tune he a bit. Elliott Banks-Browne may be a non-starter, again, as he has a broken bone in his hand to go along with the other one, he snapped at Hawkstone at the start of the year.
Josh Gilbert on his Buildbase Honda will be the man to beat in the, but round one winner Martin Barr can never be counted out. Behind them, it will be very open as any number of riders could make a trip to the winner’s podium.
John and Jason Meara shared the expert MX1 wins at round one and could do the same at this round, but the sand at Hawkstone has a funny way of mixing things up when you least expect it. In the expert MX2, the young Ben Clark, Joel Rizzi and Rossi Beard will be the ones to watch as they all had race wins at the first round.
The Clubman MX1s overall are always up for grabs but look out for Aiden Christie, Kris Rea and Adam Hayward. Clubman MX2 is more predictable as Harry Fletcher won all round one races with Brad Thornhill chasing him home in all four occasions.
The youth classes are harder to predict, but Ike Carter and Kacey Hird are both at the top in the MXY2s while James Smith and the new to class Ryan Mawhinney will be up the front of them MXY125s.
Sam Atkinson and Bailey Johnston were separated by just two points after round one and will be the ones to watch in this weekend big wheel 85’s. In the small wheel 85’s a DNF in race two stopped Tyla Hooley doing a clean sweep in the class, but Finlay Boxall will take the overall win’s any way he can get them.
And if you didn’t get enough of riding the sand of Hawkstone Park over the weekend, there is a “Hawkstone experience” the day after racing for a chance to do even more laps of this testing course. Visit the MX Nationals web site for more information on that, and anything else.
It costs £12 for a weekend spectator ticket, with under 12-year-olds free, and £10 for camping.