CDR Yamaha's Dean Ferris showed no mercy for his rivals has he dominated round six of the MX Nationals at the Nowra Motorsport complex over the weekend.
Fresh back from a successful racing stint in the US, Ferris was determined to lay down his authority in the MX Nationals as the championship picked up at Nowra after a five week break in the series and he did exactly that taking his sixth round win in a row at Nowra with two flawless motos in the premier MX1 (450cc) division.
“My attitude coming in was that everyone uses the break to reset and refresh and hit the round with renewed energy. I see their goal as to stop my momentum and break my confidence, so I focused making sure that didn’t happen and while I have them on the ropes, I want to keep them there,” Ferris said entering the event.
When the gate dropped for moto one, Ferris took control in the very early stages and began to grind out a small gap on his rivals. The tight Nowra track produces close racing and it takes relentless lap speed to gain an advantage. Ferris was ruthless in his execution. At the end of the 30 minute race, Ferris took a 15 second win and start the second half of the championship in perfect fashion.
Race two again saw the CDR Yamaha rider rocket out of the gate on his YZ450F and be placed inside the top three in the early stages. He stalked the race leaders for the first three laps before pouncing on lap four and moving to the front.
He then unleashed lap after lap of flawless racing to slowly move away from the pack. His speed and fitness combined to take him out to a 12 second race victory at the end of 30 minutes of racing.
“A 15 and 12 second win look great on paper but on this track, that takes an enormous amount of work and you are never safe. Nowra is a track that is very easy to lose time and difficult to make it back so it requires a lot of focus on the track to keep punching out consistently fast laps,” Ferris explains.
“It was a great way to start the second half of the year and showed the team and I have continued to work hard over the break and kept moving forward. I can’t thank everyone at CDR Yamaha enough for providing me with everything I need to race at my best.
“We now move onto Shepparton in two weeks’ time and it’s a completely different style of track so I’m looking forward to riding in the long ruts and technical layout that we get down there,” he ends.
Nowra also marked the return of Dylan Long for his first race back after a long time off the bike as he recovered from a hand and wrist injury. With next to no racing under his belt this season and only limited time back on the bike in the lead up to Nowra, Long was always going to find the two 30 minute races at national speed difficult but he aims to race himself back into shape as the series progresses.
He showed he hasn’t lost any of his pace and was running as high as second place in the opening moto before fatigue set in and he dropped back through the field. Moto two was just about getting more race laps under his belt and he produced two top 15 finishes in his return to racing.
“I had to start somewhere and today was the start of me getting things back on track,” Long said. “Physically I was done, as you just can’t simulate the intensity of racing out on the practice track but it feels good to be back and now I can move forward and make progress in my speed and fitness.”
Round seven of the MX Nationals takes place at Shepparton on July 16.
Ferris holds down a 61 point lead after six rounds but understands there is no room for complacency in the racing game.
For more information and a full list of results, www.mxnationals.com.
Round Six Results – Nowra
MX1
1st Dean Ferris – 70 points (CDR Yamaha)
2nd Brett Metcalfe – 64 points
3rd Kirk Gibbs – 58 points
4th Luke Clout – 54 points
5th Nathan Crawford – 51 points
6th Kade Mosig – 50 points
7th Luke Styke – 48 points
8th Kyle Peters – 46 points
9th Keiron Hall – 43 points
10th Brodie Sims – 42 points
MX1 Championship Standings- After Round Six
1st Dean Ferris – 427 points (YZ450F)
2nd Kirk Gibbs – 366 points
3rd Kade Mosig – 329 points (YZ450F)
4th Luke Styke – 310 points
5th Todd Waters – 304 points
6th Luke Clout – 277 points
7th Kyle Peters – 276 points
8th Brett Metcalfe – 239 points
9th Aleksandr Tonkov – 218 points
10th Keiron Hall – 216 points
Credits: MXN Images
For further information, please contact:
Craig Dack: craig@dackracing.com.au
Dean Ferris kept the train on the track to win his sixth straight round of the MX Nationals.