Camden McLellan of the JM Racing Honda team finished in the top ten in the final race of the MX2 World Championship in the British Matterley Basin.
On Saturday, McLellan had a very good feeling on the track and looked forward to qualifying with confidence. However, this one started with a setback because at the start he slipped on the mesh and had to start a catch-up race. In the early stages, things went well and he worked his way back up to the top ten. However, during the race he came into contact with another rider in the heat of battle and fell. This meant that he had to settle for fifteenth place. Smulders got his hands on a better and better rhythm during Saturday. However, in the qualifying heat he did not get off to a good start and drove too cautiously in the early stages. Towards the end of the race things started to improve and this gave confidence for the motos on Sunday.
In the first moto, McLellan did not get off to a good start and had to come back to the front from midfield. He worked his way back up to the top ten and had an exciting fight with three other riders. McLellan fought all the way to the finish flag and managed to get an eighth place out of it. Smulders got off to a reasonable start but couldn’t get into his rhythm at the start of the race. He was also just too cautious when overtaking, so he ended up finishing just outside the points with a twenty-first place.
At the start of the second moto, McLellan was a little too eager as he hit the starting gate. This meant that he had to start a catch-up race again from a last place. In the first two laps he did well and came back to fifteenth place. Until the end of the match he had good fights and eventually finished thirteenth. Smulders came back from a twenty-fifth place to an eighteenth position. However, with three laps to go, he hit a rock and fell. This cost him a place in the points and now finished 23rd.
In the day classification, McLellan finished in ninth place and Smulders finished the weekend in twenty-fourth place. Although McLellan had to miss the first six races of the championship due to a shoulder injury, he still finished thirteenth in the final standings of the championship. In two weeks, McLellan will ride for Team South Africa in the MX of Nations.
