Barr rides to top ten at Hawkstone International

Team Relentless Suzuki MX ended their first International event of the year full of optimism at the weekend, after team rider Martin Barr rode to an impressive top-ten finish on his RM-Z250 at Hawkstone Park in race one.

Despite excessive tyre spin out of the gate in the first MX2 race, Barr put on a strong performance, slicing through the pack, and recording some of the quickest laps of the race in the final ten minutes, before crossing the line in a great seventh place.

Race two didn't go quite to plan after a crash at the start, put him back towards the middle of the pack. Another inspired ride saw Barr move back towards the top-ten once more, before jarring his already injured thumb with three laps to go and being forced to retire.

In MX1, Jamie Law was to fly the flag for the team amongst a sea of World MX1 contenders, constantly improving throughout the weekend, bettering his qualifying position in race one to finish 19th and improve to 15th in race two.

Team manager Rob Hooper commented, "Martin rode a fantastic race in the first MX2 race. With a better start I'm confident he could have been in the top four. The thumb is a niggling injury for Martin, and it's likely to take another week or two before we can see the back of this problem. Jamie is just a little race rusty to be honest, after missing so much of last season due to injury, and subsequently he's a little over cautious in the early laps, where he needs to push harder. This will change for sure. Overall I'm really happy with the speed of both riders, proving their winter training has paid off."

The team now prepare for the first round of the British Championship at Canada Heights, next weekend.

MX1 Overall Results: 1st Marc De Reuver, 2nd Kevin Strijbos, 3rd Steve Ramon, 4th Cedric Melotte, 5th Erik Eggens, 6th Tom Church, 7th Ken De Dycker, 8th Jason Dougan, 9th Mark Jones, 10th Carl Nunn.

MX2 Overall Results: 1st Shaun Simpson, 2nd Rui Goncalves, 3rd Xavier Boog, 4th Joel Roelants, 5th Neville Bradshaw, 6th Mattis Karro, 7th Scott Elderfield, 8th Rasmus Jorgensen, 9th Pascal Leuret, 10th Lars Oldekamp