Anniversary time
They said it wouldn’t happen – but 2018 marked the 10th Vets MC of Nations.
Farleigh Vets Mxonations is 10 years old this year. Nick Haskell enjoyed the sunshine, the atmosphere and yes, the racing.
This year marked the 10-year anniversary of the now famous Vets Motocross of Nations event held at the iconic Farleigh Castle Grand Prix circuit. To mark the occasion, organiser Dave King went all out to attract one of the sport’s biggest names.
You could say many a legendary rider has graced the hallowed grounds of the Wiltshire circuit, but as far as legends go they don’t come much bigger than seven-times AMA motocross and supercross champion Ricky Johnson.
Quite apart from riding a parade lap, the 54-year-old American from El Cajon in California was here to support his home team USA as well as present the trophies.
And as far as the two main team events were concerned, it complete dominance for the boys from across the pond. A strong USA team comprising of Mike Brown, John Dowd, Doug Dubach and new boy Ivan Tedesco ran away with both Twinshock and EVO MXON trophies, leaving the rest of the competition to fight over the remaining silverware.
From the moment the gate dropped, a Stars and Stripes victory never looked in any doubt, although there were some brilliant individual performances by Laurent Lacasse (Team Germany) and Kurt Nicoll (Team England) in their respective classes to give the crowd something to cheer about, as they both battled valiantly with race leader Mike Brown. It was only a superhuman effort from Nicoll in moto two to steal victory in the dying moments of the final lap to deny Mike Brown a total whitewash in his eight Nations races. Lacasse also came close, actually passing the leader on the final lap before Brown overhauled the 49-year-old Husqvarna rider half a lap later to take victory, and secure a clean sweep in the twinshock event.
Lady Luck was not playing kindly for last year’s twinshock victors, Team England, as they could only manage fourth in the overall classifications behind the USA, Germany and Luxembourg. There were brilliant rides from the home team, particularly for Maicomounted Alex Rach, whose chances of a top five placing in the overall standings was ruined by a DNF in his third outing, after posting a 4-6-3 in the other three legs. But it all went horribly wrong in race three with Rach’s DNF and Wayne Butt finishing five laps down. A great 3-6-7 finish by the team in their final outing – however, it was still not enough to hoist them into a medal-winning position.
The home team fared much better in the EVO MXON however, coming home for a well-deserved second in the overall standings. There were great rides from every member of the squad, in particular Nicoll and Eastwood, although they both were involved in on-track incidents in one of their races, Eastwood having the indignity of being punted out in the first turn in his final race. Both Phil Mercer and Stephen Sword provided strong backup rides to secure a well-deserved podium position ahead of Team Belgium 1. In all honesty the Fat Lady had virtually left the building after the third moto as the Americans claimed the first three podium places, securing an almost unassailable lead in the points table. There was one final roll of the dice that gave the home team slight hope as Brown stalled his Husqvarna in the tight right-hand pit corner while challenging the leader, Scotsman Billy Mackenzie, costing
him a hatful of places. Meanwhile Dubach was also in trouble, losing his rear wheel spindle nut on the final lap. The Yamaha man had to frantically kick the spindle back into place minus the retaining nut to finish the race.
To add further insult to injury, Nicoll had to accept second best to his faster-starting adversary Dubach in the EVO over-50s class earlier in the day, the American reversing the tables and recording a 3-to-1 race victory tally over last year’s winner. The irony was that the American was riding Kurt’s Kawasaki from last year, Nicoll having switched to KTM machinery for this year’s event – something the American enjoyed pointing out.
Fellow American Todd Dehoop clinched overall victory in the under-50s EVO class to pile on further misery for the home supporters.
In the other races there were clean sweeps for Tom Church (EVO 125) and Billy Mackenzie (Super EVO 500). There were overall victories also for Sven Breugelmans (EVO 500), William Burgess (Over-50s Twinshock), Chris Bastick (EVO 250), Stuart White (4-stroke), Paul Kirby (pre 85) and Rob Mead (pre 83 125).
Once again it was a terrific event and difficult to see how the organisers can better it for 2019.