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Coppins fights to keep in the points hunt
The famous Loket circuit, situated just across the German-Czech border has played host to the 13th round of the MX GP World championships. CAS Honda man, Josh Coppins, has lost one point to arch rival, Stefan Everts in the championship standings despite some tough luck over the weekend.
Coppins could just about avoid a first turn pile up as Spanish rider Jonathan Barragan clashed with the CAS Honda. It took Lizzard a few laps to regain his composure however he was constantly posting the fastest split and looked to be making some headway on the leaders when he moved into third position around the halfway mark. Coppins pushed his machine to the limit and spectators thought that it would be battle of the titans as both Coppins and Pichon had closed the gap on Everts. A few minor errors in the dieing minutes of the race gave Pichon and Everts just enough breathing room to take honours but Coppins had proved that he was carrying superior speed.
Dark clouds threatened another downpour for race two nevertheless Coppins’s lightening quick reactions saw him grabbing the hole-shot but then losing it to Belgian, Kevin Strijbos as he exited the first turn. Lizzard lost the use of his roll offs on the second lap and with the consistent rain he had a difficult task ahead of him. The CAS Honda lost no time and powered its way up the inside of a difficult off camber to snatch the lead from Strijbos. Battling with his vision, Coppins managed to keep Strijbos at bay but with ten minutes to go he made a small error and lost the lead. Unable to take the punishment of the pebbly soil, Coppins had to settle for second spot.
“ Today has been quite difficult. I almost went down in the start in the first race but managed to keep on the bike. I came back quite good and had great speed in the middle of the race. I was able to catch up to Stefan and Mickael so I was quite happy with that. In the second heat I broke my roll offs two laps into the race and battled to see the lines which made things quite difficult. I’ll race in my home town in Balen next with Ben. It’s a heavy sand track so it will be good to do some testing with the bike before Lierop and improve my sand riding,” explained Coppins.
Results MX1
