This past weekend riders from Blouberg, Sunset Beach and Parklands from the Pelotrain Motocross Academy which is based in Sunningdale, competed in the AMU Championship at the Dirt Bronco circuit in Johannesburg.
Calvin Vlaanderen’ and Anthony Reynard were chosen to represent South Africa in the Pro Mini and MX2 classes respectively. The AMU is a competition where all the African countries compete as a team to find out who is the best team based on race results and scores. Individuals are also allowed to enter the event but do not score towards their country's overall points.
The day’s results were as follows:
Pro Mini:
Calvin Vlaanderen’ (Blouberg) who won the event last year went 1-8-1 for 2nd overall. In moto 1 and 3 Calvin ran away with both motos posting lap times 3sec a lap faster than the rest of the field. Bad luck however clouded the speedster in moto2 when struck with a flat rear tyre about 5min into the moto while leading. Calvin rode as hard as he could with the flat tyre to salvage as many points as possible but at the end of the day Calvin came up 3 points short of the overall.
Great riding regardless and as we all know these things happen in racing and it also builds character.
Damon Vlaanderen’ (Blouberg) who rode as an Individual had bike problems early on in the day and had to ride his brother Calvin’s spare bike. Not to be disheartened over it and not riding the machine he was familiar with, Damon went out and rode to a very impressive 6th overall in the very competitively stacked class. This was a great ride by Damon on a machine he wasn’t comfortable on.
Maria Pulinckx (Sunset Beach) who was one of the two only girls in the class rode her heart out to impress friends and foe along the way. Maria scored a very hard fought 13th overall in a field of 38 competitors and being the 1st lady home as well. Great riding by Maria.
MX2:
Having finished 2nd last year at the AMU event in Namibia Anthony Reynard (Parklands) was looking at getting on top of the podium this time round. Things were looking good for Anthony only to go down hard in a huge crash in the 1st turn of Moto 1.
About 12 riders went down with many being sent off to hospital. Anthony remounted in last place almost a lap down to put on a valiant effort to come back to 12th posting top laptimes.
At the end of the race Anthony's trainer, John Wakefield, noticed something wasn’t right with him - only to find out he had hit his head really hard in the race and had no recollection off the crash or the moto he had just rode.
John told him his day was done and he was not to race and to get him checked out by Sports Physician Dr Jeroen Swart to get him ready for the upcoming National.
Caleb Tennant (Blouberg), fresh from a two-month trip to the USA where he trained and raced, came back home and entered the AMU due to the allowance of a 15yr old racing the MX2 class. By Motorsport South Africa ruling you may only compete in this class from 16yrs old. Caleb had a great day despite a DNF (did not finish) going 7-5-DNF for 12th overall in his 1st race back on the big bikes. The DNF was caused due to Caleb dropping it in the sand section and not being able to re-start the bike while running 4th.
Overall some bad luck clouded the riders but hopefully that is out the way now for the next two National events of the year.