They say a change is as good as a rest, and a visit to a new circuit and with a new format of racing at the 2nd round of the Bridgestone British Masters certainly brought out the best in Geartec Husqvarna’s Elliott Banks-Browne as he breezed to the overall Pro MX1 victory, as well as carrying home the huge Bridgestone Cup for good measure.
The Wroxton track was a trip into the unknown for Elliott, but from practice he looked at home on the hard park circuit setting the fastest qualifying time by over 2 seconds.
In Moto 1 a holeshot to finish win was as good as it gets, and Elliott showed consistent speed to win by a comfortable margin.
The start in the second race wasn’t quite so good with his starting device going off just as the 5 second board went up. With time to pull up, and passing at a premium due to the speed of the circuit, by the time Elliott got to second he was 9 seconds from the leader. By the halfway point of the Moto though he was in the lead where he stayed until the chequered flag, giving him the overall win and extending his points lead at the top of the championships standings after two rounds.
In addition to the Championship moto’s was the sought after Bridgestone Cup race which pitched the Amateurs against the Pro’s, with the Amateurs having the advantage of a 10 second head start.
On a fast circuit and with the dust plumes becoming ever thicker, fighting through the pack was a challenge, but a good start from the pro grid saw EBB in second behind Kristian Whatley, who he passed before catching the Amateur group in no time and cutting his way through to take another race win and the cup.
Paul Mason – Team Manager
“It was another good weekend for Elliott. He is on fire at the minute, and showed good speed all day, so it’s just a case of building that intensity now so we can be getting these race wins at the Maxxis and MX Nationals”.
Elliott Banks-Browne
“I have never rode at Wroxton, but I checked the track out on You Tube and thought that look’s awesome so I was looking forward to riding it. We don’t race at many hard pack tracks now so it was nice to race somewhere different. The plan was to go there, get some race win,s and track time under our belt and that was what we did so it all went well.
“I had to really work hard in my second race for the win after a bad start, so it was good to have to push myself for that one. The last race was the Bridgestone Cup and was a bit of a weird one with the Amateur rides starting in front of us. It was a bit sketchy at times as we caught them up quite quickly, and we were going up to the jumps so much quicker, so we just had to take our time and be careful really. It was real fun though, and it made sure you kept on your toes and made you use different lines and think about what you were doing.
“The whole weekend was a little bit different, we got to ride a new track, a different format to race in, and we got some wins so we couldn’t really ask for more especially going into Preston Docks for the next round of the MX Nationals. I am feeling better every week, and riding better, and whatever virus I had, I am over, so we are moving in the right direction.”
The next two weekend’s see’s Elliott and the Geartec Husqvarna team compete in rounds 2 and 3 of the MX Nationals with the first being at Preston Docks, followed by a favourite of EBB’s Hawkstone Park.
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