Mangakino motocross ace Kayne Lamont is making the most of his time racing in the United Kingdom.

With nothing planned for his weekend, Lamont had the opportunity to rest and recharge his batteries. However, never one to take the sleep-in and have a lazy day option, the Kiwi international chose instead to head across the border and race at round three of the Welsh Open Motocross Championships.

So, instead of rest and relaxation, the BikesportNZ.com rider took his Suzuki RM-Z250 to race some of the leading riders in the south-west of the United Kingdom.

“This was a twilight meeting, so we decided to go and have a ride as we had done some testing the day before and made a few changes to my bike that we wanted to try out in a race situation,” said Lamont.

“Also, there was some good prize-money up for grabs,” he smiled.

“These are shorter sprint races so it meant you had to be on the pace right from the start, which was going to be a good test as well.

“The track was set on the side of a hill with plenty of off-camber corners. When we arrived the weather was good, track was dusty but looked a fun track with a few jumps up and down the hillside.  Just before we were about to go out for practice it start to rain quite heavy.

“In the practice session, the MX1 (open class) and MX2 (250cc) bikes all rode together.  The rain was coming down pretty hard by now which made the surface very slippery and hard to stay straight on the off-cambers. As there were no timing transponders, gate pick was determined by a rider’s placing.

“I race one I got a terrible start and was about 12th around the first corner.  I quickly made my way up to ninth (3rd in MX2) and stayed in that position to the finish.  It was quite difficult to pass, as it was so slippery and muddy.

“In race two I got another bad start but moved up quickly into the top eight, after a few more laps I had worked my way into fourth and riders were crashing all over the place.  On the last lap I passed into third (1st MX2) and finished there.

“Just before the third race was due, the organisers decided to cancel race three and go straight into the feature race (dash for cash) as the light had faded badly and the weather was miserable.”

So with two races counted, Lamont was declared MX2 class winner and he was also third equal overall (fourth on a count back) against the bigger capacity bikes.

“The Dash for Cash (feature race) was only for MX1/MX2 riders and they paid prize-money to sixth place.  I was about eighth around the first corner and then moved into seventh place.  I was right on the tail of sixth place and trying everything to make a pass. We went into the final lap and I finally managed to make the pass for sixth with about half a lap to go and that’s where I finished.

“The bike went well but it was hard to test the changes in such wet and muddy conditions. I was pleased with my racing as in such trying conditions and I managed to stay on in all three races and get some pretty good results.”

Lamont’s next big outing will be round six of the British Motocross Championships at Foxhills on July 24.

© Words by Andy McGechan, www.BikesportNZ.com

© Photo by Stefan Paetow, eons netmedia