JDR Motorex KTM has continued its perfect podium form in the Lites category at Launceston's third round of the 2010 Super X, Australasian Supercross Championship, in Tasmania on Saturday night, 30 October.
American PJ Larsen, the current Pro Lites Australian Motocross Champion, claimed second overall via 1-4 results in the Double Header event consisting of a pair of 14-lap and 12-lap finals, closing in on series leader Matt Moss by one point to trail by 17.
Larsen won his heat race and converted that form to the first final of the evening, winning by 2.723 seconds, however an off-track excursion while placed second in final number two derailed his hopes of scoring the overall victory on the night.
"I got some good starts tonight and I'm happy with that, which helped me go ahead and win the first final of the night," the 20-year-old said. "In the second final I came off a jump and got it wrong, landed on some tough blocks before I had to stop to get them off and then continue on with the race.
"All in all I made up one point on Mossy, which isn't much, but we could have lost a lot of points considering what happened. It's good to get out of here with minimal damage and we'll keep pushing in New Zealand."
Lites class teammate Ryan Marmont scored fifth overall with 6-5 results on his 250SX-F, however a pair of crashes took him out of contention for the victory after leading both finals. Marmont was in his best form of the season and maintains third in the series.
"I worked really hard this week and I felt like I had good speed tonight," Marmont said. "In the first moto Lawson Bopping cleaned me out and I lost all my momentum, but then in the second one I was able to lead until the final lap when I got passed. I kind of rushed it and I shouldn't have jumped the triple, had no room and landed on the tough blocks so I crashed. Even though the result didn't show my form on the night, I'm content with the result and really plan to push hard from this point."
In the Open category, 18-year-old Tye Simmonds showed his speed during the night on his way to seventh overall after a dramatic Survival format that featured four seven-lap finals to make up the main event ‰ÛÒ the bottom five in each moto being eliminated out of the program.
Simmonds made it to the third elimination round of the night on his 350SX-F crossing the line in seventh and being credited that result for the night. In the opening pair of finals he raced to 5-6 results respectively in a solid start to the night. Simmonds, from Burke in New South Wales, retains sixth in the title chase.
"Tonight was a bit up and down," Simmonds said. "I feel like I rode pretty good, but my starts made it tough tonight. I'm kind of happy, but it would have been good to make the final five and battle with the top guys in that last race. Now we have a weekend off, so I'll try to get everything dialed for New Zealand so we can go and get a strong result."
Open class teammate Mike Alessi rode through the pain of a groin injury to take ninth overall, the world class American taking 9-7-9 results on the night ‰ÛÒ the final race determining the overall result. The result moved Alessi up one position to 11th in the series.
"I definitely felt good in practice and was able to qualify in fifth," the Californian commented. "I struggled really bad in the main event with bad starts, but that's just the way it goes ‰ÛÒ if you get bad starts the races are short and you can't make many passes. My bike was good and the team has been working well, but I injured my groin early on in the night so I had to tough it out, try to do the best that I could while riding in pain. We're going to keep working, come back in New Zealand and be strong."
The results overall sees the JDR Motorex KTM second in both the Open and Lites Team standings, well in contention for the overall titles as the season progresses.
"Tonight was a little up and down, great to see PJ win the first final in the Lites and Ryan was riding really good all night," Team manager Jay Rynenberg said. "We can take a lot of positives out of it, the boys both had the speed to win but the stars just didn't align tonight. From a championship point of view, the night was quite strong for both of them in the Lites.
"In the Opens Tye was riding good and had a lot of confidence in him for the first two finals, but then the Survival format kind of bit him in the third final after he didn't get such a good start ‰ÛÒ he should have saved the good ones for the end. Mike pulled a muscle in his groin so he was struggling a bit in the finals, but we've got a weekend off and time to heal those injuries. We'll come out swinging in New Zealand and are looking forward to it."
Round four of the series will be contested in Auckland, New Zealand, after one weekend off, the event set for 13 November.
