The Supermotoland Husqvarna race team had a tough weekend at the final round of the Spanish supermoto championship held at the super fast Kotar circuit an hour north of Madrid.
British racer Loris Ford-Dunn was looking forward to a good weekend on a track that he is normally very competitive at, but despite showing some good speed in Friday testing he struggled to find the pace needed to race with the front runners. His results were poor compared to his usual standards and it was a shame to round of a year without showing the pace he is capable of. He qualified 8th, finished 10th in the superpole race and was 10th in race one and 8th in race two, giving him 9th overall in the weekends standings.
It was later found that his race bike was suffering from a cracked cylinder head and blown head gasket, which no doubt was a factor in his performance at the high speed track. He finishes the year 7th in the Spanish SM road championship and is already working on how to improve his speed for the 2024 season.
British racer Ryan Blackburn also struggled to find his feet on the high speed Kotar circuit. It was the first time that Ryan had been to the Kotar circuit and it was difficult to learn the track and get up to speed. Ryan finished 8th in race one and 7th in race two which gave him a 7th overall in the Sm30 road class. The result was enough to give him an incredible 5th overall in the SM30 road spanish supermoto championship standings. A pretty incredible result for his first ever season racing supermoto.
British racer Nick Cronin experienced the highs and lows of racing in quick succession. He loved the Kotar track and was experiencing some of his best race battles of the year until he was taken out by another riders reckless move in the second race. The resulting crash broke Nicks, collar bone, hand and a rib, but luckily none of the injuries were displaced and will not require surgery, so he was back at work in the UK the day after the race and will now concentrate on healing up before he can start training again.
Despite the DNF in race 2, Nick did enough to finish 8th overall in the SM30 road class for the weekend, and this result meant that he finished 4th overall in the SM30 road Spanish Supermoto championship standings. A great achievement in his first full year of Supermoto racing and whilst coming back from ACL reconstruction surgery from the previous year.
The race season is now over for the Supermotoland Husqvarna race team and they now turn their attention to the Supermotoland race school and winter training camps to start preparing for the 2024 race season.
A massive thanks to all the teams sponsors, racers, mechanics and personnel, that make racing with supermotoland so much fun. Roll on 2024……….
