Evgeny Bobryshev, aboard his Lombard Express/Par Homes Suzuki RM-Z450, pushed hard despite injury to achieve an overall fourth place finish at this weekend’s round of the Maxxis British Motocross Championship at Desertmartin.
The series made its way to Northern Ireland for the fourth round at Desertmartin and Bobryshev, a first time visitor to the track, was confident coming in to the round stating the fast and wide sand-based circuit was well suited to his riding style. This confidence shone through as he posted the third fastest time in qualifying.
In race one Bobryshev had a solid start, exiting turn one in eighth position and moving up to sixth on the opening lap. Lap two saw him pass Jamie Law and Graeme Irwin to take fourth before making a move on Elliot Banks-Browne for third soon after. A mistake from Jake Nicholls then gifted him second as the race entered the latter stages.
Unfortunately, a small mistake allowed Irwin back through before a crash had the Russian struggling to restart his machine. He pushed hard on the last few laps to salvage fifth position at the chequered flag.
Keen to improve on race one, race two saw another confident start with Bobryshev fast out of the gate, taking the holeshot into turn one. With clear track ahead of him he rode well to pull a comfortable gap over Tommy Searle.
However, after a near-miss with a back marker, Bobryshev ended up cross-rutted on the approach to a jump. He managed to recover but lost out to Searle and Ivo Monticelli in the process, dropping to third. Pushing through the pain caused by the incident, he held on to the position for the remainder of the race.
Despite not having the best of luck throughout the weekend, Bobryshev’s efforts saw him move to second in the championship standings, 19 points behind leader Nicholls with four rounds to go.
Bobryshev said, “I didn’t lose any points in the championship today, but I didn’t gain any either. I was feeling great this morning but unfortunately the crash in race two really upset my rhythm. I’m still in one piece, but my leg is quite hurt so I’m going for some check-ups next week. My next race is the world championship in Indonesia so we’ll hope for better results there.”
Team manager Neil Prince added, “We had some great starts today, but everything else has been a bit weird really. In the second race Bobby was leading, comfortably four seconds in front of Searle, but he got caught out big time over the back. You have to feel for him - he has the pace but got caught out twice in the same section. That’s racing though and we have to move on and get ready for the next race.”