WBR Yamaha’s Koby Hantis now carries the leaders red plate after a wild and crazy weekend for the MX3 division at Maitland.
The WBR Yamaha team enjoyed another successful, yet eventful, outing at the ProMX with all four riders having moments throughout the day but ended up with every rider inside the top six and in the championship fight. Koby Hantis faired the best and regained the red plate after leaving Maitland.
Koby Hantis led the way for the team yesterday putting together three strong motos in typical Hantis fashion. Hantis may not have the raw speed of some of his rivals, but he more than makes up for it in his fight and determination and will to race right to the end of each and every moto.
Hantis finished with 3-2-4 results over the weekend and second for the round. The strong performance now sees him back on top of the championship table in a very congested leader board.
“The weekend was good for me, and it was important I bounced back after a rough round at Gilman a few weeks ago. I was confident going into the weekend as I have raced Maitland quite a bit, so it was nice to get a good result, get the red plate back and keep working towards the championship,” Hantis said.
Hot on his heels and making his first podium appearance for the year, was Seth Burchell. Burchell missed the opening round with injury but is climbing his way but into form and back up the ranks in the championship.
His 6-3-2 results gave him third for the round and now leaps into ninth for the series with the top five not out of the question by the end of the year.
“Pretty stoked to get my first podium for the WBR Yamaha team and do it with here at Maitland with my friends and family watching. The first race I had to get my way through the pack, but my starts were better in the last two and I rode well.”
Also keeping his consistency going was Kobe Drew who came home in fourth place for the weekend. Drew started out the weekend slowly but found some mojo as the races went on and finished with 8-7-3 results to take fourth for the round and maintain third in the championship.
“I was down on myself after the first two races, so I was happy to get a decent result on the board for the final race. I felt much better on the track and my speed was right there with the guys which it wasn’t in the first,” Drew explains.
One man that had a wild weekend was Kayd Kingsford. Kingsford came into the weekend with the points lead and again showed he has plenty of speed, but some mistakes in races two and three proved costly and he will need to clean them up for the coming rounds.
Kingsford finished with 2-9-10 results for sixth overall and now sits second in the championship at the halfway stage.
“I had way too many sketchy moments out there and made way too many mistakes,” Kingsford said. “I was leading in race two and just launched way to far off one of the jumps and crashed, then in the last race, I was right there in the top three and made a mistake just before the pit board area. It was a frustrating way to finish the day but I stayed close in the points so it could have been way worse.”
All the attention now shifts to Murray Bridge for round five of the championship where the team will be looking to consolidate their positions in the championship.