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Tough conditions in Gaildorf make work for Townley.
An entire weekend of rain and rough track conditions have taken their toll on the GP riders. Ben Townley was not spared with having to fight through both races to salvage some valuable championship points.
The first turn would no doubt be a lottery with Townley managing to stay out of trouble. The New Zealander emerged in fourth on the opening lap and quickly moved to third position behind KTM team-mate Steve Ramon and Stefan Everts. Townley was making good time on the two Belgians when he went down in the mud and was relegated to sixth. He regained his composure and once again charged through the pack only to go down for the second time. The resilient Kiwi was not counted out yet and put together a fast string of laps which would rocket the KTM 450 to third place with two laps to go. Townley was the only rider who dared to jump the spectacular triple jump and he went on to lap six seconds faster than leader Everts on the final lap and closed the gap immensely.
The second heat saw Townley neatly placed in third after a tight first turn tussle. BT was about to make a move on second place man Tanel Leok, when his back end slid out and he could not avoid crashing. Townley rejoined the pack with a huge task ahead and fought for every position he could. He broke into the top ten before the halfway mark and was making ground on the top five. Townley succeeded in moving up to seventh position by the time the chequered flag fell.
“ I really had to dig deep” explained an exhausted Townley “I tried too hard and went down twice in the first heat. After that came I back really strong and I was happy with that. I pushed too hard in the second heat - fighting through the pack really takes a lot of energy and gave it all I had today. I’m trying too hard at the moment. I need to relax a bit more and let it come to me. I had my sights set on a podium overall but I guess that will have to wait another week.”
Results MX1
