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Contributed by: Ian Miles.
World motocross ace Josh Coppins has shown Kiwi grit to rise above his detractors and grabbed third fastest qualifying spot for tomorrow’s Grand Prix of Sweden.
Current runner-up in the prestige 250 class, the expat New Zealander managed to ignore an official doping charge and public humiliation from his Italian race team to rattle the rock quarry circuit at Uddevalla.
With a time of 1 min 57.587 sec, the 25-year-old expat New Zealander was bettered only by his arch-rival and runaway points leader Mickael Pichon and Norwegian Kenneth Gundersen, winner of the 125 Grand Prix here last year.
Left in a shower of shingle were several other holders of world titles plus many pretenders.
“It feels good to see my name up near the top of the leaderboard,” commented the plucky Coppins after a tense 30-minute qualifying session on Saturday afternoon.
“I twisted my ankle in practice this morning, aggravating an old injury, and I was still working on my fastest lines throughout this session.
“By the end I felt I was getting some good lap times, but I can go quicker yet,” he said with a nod to Sunday’s 40-minute GP event, the eighth of 12 rounds in the championship season.
All this was set against a background of an official doping charge after Coppins took the wrong kind of hay fever tablet before a previous round.
A preliminary legal hearing this week sent him for a higher court case next month.
Meanwhile Coppins’ team had suspended him from all riding, including training, but reneged on the eve of the grand prix in order to have the world number two in their colours at Glimminge Motorstadion 100km north of Gothenberg.
“It’s a tough track but there’s plenty of natural terrain and it suits the hard-working riders,” said Coppins, known as one of the hardest trainers in the business.
In the title hunt Pichon has 163 points to Coppins’ 136, coming to Sweden.
Meanwhile Coppins’ fellow expat Ben Townley did not have to qualify for the 125 Grand Prix, thanks to his top ten standing in the small bike category.
The 17-year-old is right in the hunt for the world title as he lines up his Big Five Vangani KTM in sixth place overall.
Townley has 97 points while the leader has only 125 in a championship where every one of the remaining five grands prix offers 25 points for victory.
Coppins races at 11am Sunday local time, Townley four hours later.
[Send your :SUPPORT TO JOSH:]
[An indication of just how hard it is to qualify is that; Andrew McFarlane (Aus) - Kawasaki - was 10th and Kim Ashkenazi (Aus) - Yamaha - was 25th.
“This is an opportunity for me to show I don’t need any kind of drugs to perform.
Darryl Atkins was the 27th of the 30 qualifiers on the MJ Church Kawasaki.]
