Words and photos by Dick Law
Lewis Trickett and the ASA Scaffolding Honda team made the trip to Hawkstone Park for the second round of the British Two-stroke championship, which was combined with round four of the MX1 and MX2 British championship and came away with a very strong second place overall placing them just 16 points behind the series leader, Dutchman Mike Kras.
Current EMX300 European champion Kras is the man to beat as after winning both races at round one at Canada Heights he set a blistering qualifying time just under three and a half seconds faster than second place man Matt Moffat.
Lewis was happy with his fourth fastest as he knew it would be two long hard races on the rough and tough sandy Hawkstone track and anything could happen.
Jake Edey got the holeshot at the start of the first race but by the time the pack of riders had come round to complete the opening lap Kras was in the lead with Lewis in his wheel tracks.
Edey was in third followed by James Dunn, Neville Bradshaw and Moffat.
By the time the race had reached half distance Kras had opened up a lead over Lewis by just over seven seconds with Bradshaw now in third and doing all he could to close in on the leaders.
At the end of the eighteen minute plus a lap race, Kras had not been able to pull away from Lewis as the pair crossed the finish line still separated by just over seven seconds.
Bradshaw was third, some ten seconds further back and was followed by Moffat, Dunn and Phil Mercer.
Dunn led the pack round the opening lap of race two followed by Moffat, Bradshaw and Kras, Lewis was back in eighth with some work to do.
Both Moffat and Kras passed Dunn on lap four to take over the leading two positions as Lewis started to put Bradshaw under pressure for fourth place with still more than half of the race to go.
Kras found a way past Moffat for the lead at the half way point as Lewis passed Bradshaw for third as Dunn slipped back into the chasing pack.
With two laps to go Lewis moved into second place and tried to close on the leader Kras but run out of time as the pair crossed the finish line separated by just over a second with Bradshaw third from Moffat and Dunn.
“I was that happy with the bike set-up in qualifying and I made a couple of mistakes that dropped us to fourth gate pic, but we made some changes that worked out well before the race” said Lewis, “I have to thank Mark Eastwood of Eastwood Racing for help with set-up and our engines as they worked awesome all weekend. In the first race after gating third I made a strong pass in to second by the end of the lap and tried to shadow Mike (Kras) to see if I could learn anything from him as he is a great sand rider. I was happy with my second place as I was only seven seconds behind him.
“In the second race I span up the rear wheel on the concrete start line and messed up my start a bit as I banged bars with Jim (Davidson) going up the start straight. I was in fifth and the end of the first lap with all the top runners in sight. I made a big push at the end of the race and passed all of them but Mike for another second place and a solid second overall”
Lewis showed this weekend the he has the pace and the desire to take the fight to Kras for this year’s two-stroke championship.
