Aaron Tanti will take a 24-point lead into the final round of the ProMX Championship at Coolum this weekend, after finishing second at the penultimate round at Queensland Moto Park (QMP).
The first national motocross event held QMP proved to be a successful one with thousands of spectators filing into the park for a sensational day of motocross racing. With rain on Saturday and clear blue skies on Sunday, the track was in near perfect condition and the best in Australian motocross turned it on.
Tanti entered round seven with a solid 29-point lead but is still determined to keep charging for race wins and looking to secure as many points as possible. He left with a 24-point lead after a fast and consistent day that has him well-placed leading into the final weekend at Coolum.
The MX1 division contested a 30-minute moto in the morning, followed up with back-to-back 15-minute races in the afternoon to determine the round winner. Tanti raced to a second-place finish in race one, where he spent 30-minutes in the roost of Dean Ferris but was unable to find his way to the front. Ferris got the lead right from the drop of the gate and Tanti slotted in behind and despite several charges to the rear wheel, wasn’t able to make a pass.
The afternoon saw the riders face the back-to-back races which places pressure on the rider and teams to execute another start and keep out of harms way in the opening lap chaos. Again, Tanti proved consistent and finished with 2-3 results, which combined gave him second for the day and only give up five points in his championship lead.
“My attitude coming into these last few rounds hasn’t changed as I still want to win races and still will fight all the way to the end, regardless of the result,” Tanti said. “My goal today was to win, but when I reflect, maybe the biggest obstacle I faced was that I didn’t get the starts to make that happen.
“The track was technical and difficult to ride and pass at times, so track position was extremely important and while my starts were good, they weren’t perfect and when you give riders a bit of a head start, it was hard to hunt them down on a track like this.
“Still, I’m not disappointed as I was able to string together three good races and finish up second on the day and maintain a pretty good point lead heading into the final round.
“Thanks to everyone at CDR Yamaha Monster Energy team and all our sponsors and it was awesome to see so many people turn out for the QMP round,” he added.
The final round hits the black sand of Coolum, on the Sunshine Coast this weekend where the event will be run over a two day format with the major classes having practice and qualifying on Saturday before racing on Sunday.
With 24-points in hand, Tanti knows that he can’t afford to take his foot off the pedal and is out to finish the season in good form.
“I will just keep doing what I’m doing, so no chances for me this week. I will get my training done as per usual with maybe a small tweak given that we ride Saturday but otherwise what’s worked for me all season will continue and I plan to race well again this weekend and finish the championship positively,” he concluded.
