Buildbase Honda’s Jake Nicholls extended his win-streak to a perfect 10 when he raced to a double victory at Hawkstone Park today at round three of the Michelin MX Nationals.
Jake’s now won six-from-six in the Pro MX1 class of the Michelin MX Nationals on his CRF450R and the last four Maxxis ACU British Motocross Championship motos.
Second-fastest in qualifying, Jake made no mistake at the start of both motos. Hitting the front by turn two of the opening race, he led every lap on his way to a 36-second victory. Race two was a wire-to-wire win with Jake battling a sudden downpour to enjoy an advantage of over 23 seconds at the flag.
“That’s 10 wins in a row so it’s been a good day,” he said. “I must admit that the track was tough – there is such a variety of skill level in this series that it creates a strange track but I think I dealt with it all right. I got a good start in the first moto, took my time in the first couple of laps and then put the hammer down and pushed on.
“The second race was much the same. It went really dark and then started raining – I had a bit of a tinted lens on so after about four or five laps I couldn’t see a thing. I was really struggling. Otherwise, my fitness felt good, the bike was really good and I was just enjoying myself. It was nice to get a couple more wins, that’s for sure.”
The team’s Pro MX2 rider Josh Gilbert had a much tougher day. Racing against the 450s in the mixed-capacity motos, he qualified fifth in class but DNF’d the opening race when he lost his coolant. Starting race two near the front, Josh crashed on the opening lap but fought his way back up from 30th on the first lap to fifth in class.
“It’s been very tough today,” said Josh. “I didn’t get the best of starts in the first one but I was coming back through and about three laps from the end I had a mechanical problem and ended up DNFing.
“I actually got a really good start in race two but it was red-flagged. I didn’t get quite as good a start on the re-run and ended up going into the little bombhole before the finish line upside down. I was dead-last pretty much and then got my head down and managed to come back to fifth in MX2. I was happy with my riding in the last race but was annoyed that I went down so early on.”
Callum Green, the team’s MXY2 rider, topped the podium on his CRF250R with an impressive three wins from four starts.
“It was a good day for me today to finally get the overall,” he said. “It’s taken me a while to get it. The track was very difficult – in the first race the hill was very hard and by the time of the last race it was extremely rough. It’s probably the hardest race we’ve had so far on the hardest track so it was good to come away with the win.”
For team boss Dave Thorpe it was a round of mixed results.
“Jake won both but we think Josh holed a radiator in the first one as we lost the water,” he said. “In the second race he had a reasonable start but went down on the first lap, restarted at the back and came through to fifth.
“In the first race Jake spun out of the gate but by the time he was into the first left-hander he was in the lead and in the second race he had a clear holeshot. He controlled his races with ease
