KRT rider Billy Mackenzie’s continued domination of the Grand Prix of Japan at the Sugo circuit set a number of landmarks today in front of 24,000 spectators and a large crew of appreciated Team Green staff. The 23 year old, who has won the MX2 class at Sugo in 2005 and 2006, became the first ever British rider to triumph in the MX1 category with first and second positions and also provided the potent KX450-F SR with its maiden victory in the premier competition of the FIM Motocross World Championship. His ‘overall’ success under cloudy skies and occasional sunshine came about in only the Scot’s sixth Grand Prix in KRT colours.
For the third year in a row the popular Sugo circuit proved a very rough, technical and physically demanding test. A deluge of rain meant that the soft mud was thoroughly soaked for Saturday’s practice and qualification periods. The effect of the downpours caused the mud to be exceedingly bumpy with some deep ruts and boggy sections of the course making the track far from easy.
Mackenzie missed out on his debut pole position by two tenths of a second on Saturday and early signs that the Briton meant business was evident with his rapid lap to head the time sheets in the second Free Practice period.
The first moto saw ‘Mac’ take a poor jump from the gate but he bullied his way into the first three by the third corner and then take the lead from Mike Brown several turns later. He had an advantage of three seconds by the end of the lap and quickly built up an incredible twenty-one second gap after seven circulations, which he then managed to the chequered flag for the first ever ’25’ points for the KX450-FSR.
A second moto repeat ‘escape’ from the chasing pack looked likely when he again overtook Brown on the opening lap and massaged a five second margin over the American and Ken de Dycker for most of the race. The current British Championship leader caused a late shock when he lost control and crashed in the wave section, smashing the peak of his helmet and crunching his foot. He was able to remount quickly and even managed to shake some dizziness away to stay ahead of Josh Coppins and seal second position behind Brown who had inherited the moto.
Mackenzie, who set the fastest lap in both motos, dedicated the historic win for Team Green to absent Team Manager Jan de Groot who was sadly hospitalised back in the Netherlands due to illness.
“I don’t know what happens when I come to Japan as the track is not one of my favourites,” he admitted. “It is good to ride but everything just seems to go well for me here. I was putting in good lap-times through practice and qualifying and that gave me confidence for the race.”
“I had a better feeling here than last year. The 450 has much more power and with the good qualifying times it was coming easy to me. I don’t know what happened with the crash. I was taking the same line every lap and tripling into the whoops but I hit a kicker on the take-off and it threw me over the bars. I wasn’t sure what to do mid-air and ended up jumping off it. Luckily the bike missed me and I could grab the clutch in time so that it did not stall. I was really dizzy coming back down the hill. I was thinking ‘I hope I can still win this GP’, and I did not know where I was overall. I had no clutch and had to be precise in the corners. It was a bit scary and I am just glad that I am up here today.”
“It is great being on the factory team,” he added. “Kawasaki put in so much effort. I have been to Japan with them testing and everything is so spot-on. The bike is awesome and the suspension is great; I can’t thank them enough. It is a bit of a shame Jan wasn’t here to see it but I send my best wishes back to him and I hope he watched it on TV and feels as good as I do.”
Tanel Leok was struck by more misfortune as the Estonian had to retire with an overheating machine in the first moto. He lacked track time and familiarity with the bumps and lines of the layout in the second race but rode strongly to take seventh place for fourteenth overall.
“It was not so good today for me,” he commented. “I had some bike problems in the first race. The second was OK but I did not know the track that well. My riding was alright but it could have been better.”
“Kawasaki have won the MX1 and MX2 classes on the same day and this is a great result,” said KRT Assistant Manager Martin Van Genderen partially referring to GPKR’s Christophe Pourcel’s success in the smaller category. “I am only sorry that Jan is not here to see it as we have been working all season for a good result. We had a podium already with Tanel but this is extra special because it is in Japan. I think he would be very happy as are we.”
“It is absolutely fantastic for us to come to Japan and have a clean sweep, double win in front of all the guys who make the difference like the technician and the management,” said European Team Green Off-road Co-ordinator Steve Guttridge. “It is brilliant for Billy to show us his true capabilities and give us a platform to build on for the rest of the season. For Christophe to make up some points on Cairoli is very important psychologically and makes him realise that there are still a lot of races to go.”
In the World Championship standings Leok holds tenth and is just six points ahead of Mackenzie who has moved up to eleventh.
KRT have racing commitments next weekend. Mackenzie will be expecting to defend his British Championship at the fourth round of the series at Langrish in southern England and then the week afterwards the Grand Prix of France represents the seventh and next stage on the 2007 GP schedule.
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