Tough Times At The Grand Prix of Great Britain  (Aug 22, 2011)

With a telephone call only confirming Stuart Edmonds' entry into the MX2 Grand Prix of Great Britain on Tuesday afternoon it was a monumental task to prepare his machinery from the ground up and get to the venue in a little over two days, with a huge team effort the bikes were prepped and looked fabulous with their new Grittenham MX emblazoned decal kits supplied by Jim at Motoshack. Upon arrival the track looked superb spread out across the basin and even the rain leading up to the event, that had caused so much chaos in the parking areas, could not dampen your enthusiasm as you gazed at the incredible venue for this round of the Motocross World Championships.

With free practice and timed practice already done and dusted it was now time for Saturday's qualification race and it was now up to Stuart to pound out the laps for 20 minutes and ensure he gave himself the best start position that he could. After a difficult start Stuart began to settle into a nice rhythm and began making places to soon be just outside the top twenty, however his charge was to be short-lived as contact broke his rear brake master cylinder away from the machine completely, unfortunately destroying the mounting brackets on the chassis too as the cylinder flayed around for 10 minutes under race conditions, with no rear brake Stuart ran the remainder of the race, where many would have quit, to finish the race in a well earned 32nd position.

It was now time for Sunday morning's warm-up prior to the main event and with the track now roughed up substantially and damp once again it was time for some small, but vital, suspension changes to be made to the machine which allowed Stuart to be more comfortable and precise in his riding. Washed, prepped and ready to go it was soon time for race one of the MX2 class and after some post sighting lap final adjustments it was time for action, with a wide gate position the start was not going to favour Stuart and would for sure leave him with work to do, however, with some clever manoeuvres in the first half a lap Stuart had started inch up the field and he began to settle into a steady rhythm. As his confidence grew and with some good line selections Stuart's lap times began fall and lap after lap he made up more places, with just over 13 minutes remaining on the clock disaster struck his machines electrical system and it began to lose power, with the bike now becoming more and more difficult to ride on the huge jump laden circuit Stuart circulated around to the work area and into retirement.

With a bike already out of race action, the damage being un-repairable 'on-site' after Saturday's qualification race and with the short notice of acceptance into the event not allowing the team to be fully prepared for 'gp action' with only two machines available, it was a very difficult time for the TM crew with only a small timescale between races. After washing the remaining machine they tried to identify the problem, with much work, many diagnostic checks, changing of components from the other machine and after testing the machine it appeared to have been repaired and the original symptoms gone.

Now on the line for the second MX2 race the gate dropped, Stuart cut across the back of the field from his gate and tried to get to the inside as the other riders forced each other wider, using his vast knowledge and experience Stuart was soon into 18th place after only a few turns and was charging hard. Coming into the 180 degree turn before the huge triple and quad jump section Stuart was hit and forced into a fall, remounting quickly he was soon on the gas but losing his momentum in such a place was not so good and he was passed by numerous riders taking himself well outside the points zone. Trying to regain his rhythm Stuart pushed on once more in the long 35 minute + 2 lap race only to fall once again after being kicked sideways by a nasty accelerating bump which threw his machine violently to the right and off the track through the infamous green catch fencing. Luckily not to get tangled and after remounting once more Stuart was again on the gas but was now left with an incredible amount of work to do to catch his competitors in the top twenty as he sat at the tail end of the field. Sadly for Stuart it was to all go wrong once more as his machine protested beneath him and began to lose power and started to misfire forcing Stuart to ride into the pits into retirement, a dejected Stuart walked solemnly back to the pits whilst his crew rode his machine to the wash area to put an end to an incredible 'rollercoaster ride' weekend.

With thanks to all our sponsors and supporters.
Also a special thanks to Philip Mclaughlin of Philip McLaughlin Performance (PMP Suspension), Steve Knight of Kleenrite Specialist Cleaning Services and to Simon at Grittenham MX for all their hard work and involvement over the weekend.

Thank You, Team TM UK.

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