    |
 |
|
|
|
from Ian Miles
The Lizzard is back!
Motocross ace Josh Coppins has stormed back onto the podium at the world championships, blasting through the sand to third place in today’s Grand Prix of Lierop in The Netherlands.
It’s the first big result for the New Zealand expat since he fought back from serious injury early this year.
Beaten only by the booming four-strokes of the two multi world champions gunning for this year’s glamour title, Belgians Stefan Everts and Joel Smets, 26-year-old Coppins rode the forcefully intelligent race which has typified his nine-year professional career.
“I’m rapt to be back in contention for GP honours,” commented the laidback Kiwi after today’s gruelling ride.
“I got a good holeshot, and led for the fist half lap.
“The only other rider I saw that lap was Everts, he was going real fast, almost crazy.
“He pulled seconds on me straight away, he was just unbeatable today, but I knew I was competitive with the rest of the field.
“I had a small tumble in the whoops section, but I didn’t lose much time and lots of other guys were having more trouble than that,” said New Zealand’s top motorcycle racer.
“It’s great to be back on the podium, I got 10 of them in 12 races last year. But it’s been a pretty frustrating wait ever since.
“I still have improvement to make, but I’ve always known it was only a matter of time till I got back to running with the leaders.
Coppins, star of the British-based CAS Honda squad, diced with the four-stroke 450 of teammate Gordon Crockard throughout the race today before the Irishman slipped off the leaderboard in the final laps.
Coppins was the first two-stroke rider home, shutting down fourth placegetter Norwegian Kenneth Gundersen by almost half a minute.
The deep Dutch sand threw up a race of high attrition, with only 19 of the 30 starters finishing the 40 minutes, all but seven of them lapped by Everts as the temperatures cooled from this week’s European heatwave but humidity remained high following heavy morning fog in the still conditions which threw the raceday schedule into disarray.
Suzuki star Mickael Pichon, the only man to head Coppins in the old 250 class last year, was hammered into sixth today after dicing early with Smets and the controversial Frenchman is now losing his challenge to the Belgians.
With three rounds remaining in this historic first year of the Motocross GP class, pitting 450 four-strokes against the 250 two-strokes, six times world champ Everts has cracked 200 points and pulled a 10-point advantage over his career-long rival Smets.
Smets, the four times world champ who took pole position yesterday, has still not won a race all year … Pichon claimed the first three and Everts took the honours ever since … but his consistency has been rewarded as he stole second overall from Pichon today.
Coppins was tipped to be a strong two-stroke challenger until he crashed heavily during training in the USA in January, breaking his back, both feet and an ankle.
“My championship hopes disappeared at that moment,” commented the man from Motueka.
“I missed four rounds in the first half of the season, but even so I’m back to 13th overall now.
“I’m feeling much better about my riding and I’m getting back into real race form at last, so I can get up into the top ten of the championship before the year is over.
“I’m looking for podiums at all three of the final races,” Coppins added.
Championship points after nine of 12 rounds:
1 Stefan Everts (Belgium) Yamaha 200; 2 Joel Smets (Belgium) KTM 190; 3 Mickael Pichon (France) Suzuki 188 points; 4 Brian Jorgensen (Denmark) Honda 112, 5 Kenneth Gundersen (Norway) Kawasaki 111; 6 Andrew McFarlane (Australia) Kawasaki 105; 7 Claudio Federici (Italy) Yamaha 95; 8 Yoshitaka Atsuta (Japan) CAS Honda 93; 9 Kevin Strijbos (Belgium) Suzuki 80;10 Gordon Crockard (Ireland) CAS Honda 78. 13 Josh Coppins (New Zealand) CAS Honda 53.
