The penultimate round of the ACU Maxxis British Motocross Championship, powered by Skye Energy Drink saw the Wilvo Forkrent KTM head to their local venue of the season at Preston Docks (Lancashire, UK). With MXGP pilot Jake Nicholls still out due to an ongoing back injury it was down to Adam Sterry to produce the results for the team.
Qualifying
The day started with practice and timed qualifying sessions which saw Sterry produce a quick lap early on in the session, finishing second fastest and just 0.7 seconds behind series leader Max Anstie.
Race 1
When the gate dropped for the opening race of the day, Sterry rounded the first corner inside the top six and carved his way into third around the second turn, and quickly up into second place a few corners later. Once in second place, Sterry was able to match the pace of race leader Anstie and the two of them rode away from the rest of the field. The 19-year-old was able to keep a steady gap close to Anstie until losing some ground in the closing stages to cross the line in a great second place.
Race 2
The second race would see Sterry take the holeshot and lead the race during the opening lap but once again, Max Anstie was close behind and soon made a move into the lead. Sterry continued to push hard and followed Anstie for the duration of the race until towards the end when slower riders obstructed progress which meant he had to settle for second again at the finish.
Race 3
In the final race of the day Sterry didn’t make such a good start and was then caught up with a crash in turn two – remounting dead last Sterry had a lot of work to do. His head down, he quickly started to push his way forward and moved through the point scoring positions. As the race progressed Sterry continued to make some fantastic passes and managed to finish in a strong sixth place at the line.
The three strong results were enough to give him a second place classification overall on the day and moved him to within two points of third place in the championship with one round remaining.
“It’s been a really good day at one of my local tracks,” said Adam Sterry. “I had a good qualifying session in second place behind Max. In the first race I didn’t make a great start and was about fifth but quickly moved into second behind Max and stayed with him for most of the race.
“In the second race I got the holeshot and was leading for the opening lap but Max was right behind me and got by; so I settled in behind and rode a solid race for second. The final race of the day I got caught up in the carnage on the second corner and was dead last and had to chase hard all race long to get sixth. All in all, with second overall on the day I’m happy.” Team Manager, Steve Turner commented: “Adam rode great today. He and Max were the class acts and looked really dominant. It was good to see him running the pace of Max in the first two races and he made some amazing passes in the final race to get back to sixth at the end. All in all it was a good day, and it has set him up nicely for the final round at FatCat where he will be going head-to-head with Watson for third in the championship.”
