Returning to South Australia for its second stop of the 2024 ProMX Championship, Round 5 took place last weekend at South Coast Motocross Club, where our SA team aimed to shine in front of a hometown crowd. Let’s take a quick look at how our SA riders went against Australia’s finest.
Thor MX1
Taking on his last national round here in SA before retirement at the end of the year, Brett Metcalfe certainly kicked off his weekend on the right foot and put on a show. Qualifying and securing 5th in the AMX Superstores MX1 Superpole set the stage for an anticipated showdown. He narrowly missed the podium in Race 1, finishing 4th behind expat Kirk Gibbs by just 2.520 seconds. Despite fierce competition in Race 2, Metcalfe fought valiantly to maintain a top 5 finish for the round, ultimately concluding his weekend at South Coast with a 7th place in Race 2.
Siegah Ward held off mid-pack battles to take 13th in Race 1 but faced issues on lap 12 of Race 2, forcing an early retirement.
Elijah Wiese showed resilience despite starting 22nd, navigating challenges to finish Race 1 in 26th place behind Queensland’s Zhane Dunlop. He improved his Race 2 push with a 24th place.
Jordan Simpson began his weekend with a 29th-place finish in the chaotic Race 1 action. He kept his round 5 consistency with another 29th-place finish in Race 2.
Pirelli MX2
Alex Larwood impressed with a strong qualifying performance, taking 2nd place just 0.637 seconds behind Victoria’s Bordia Connolly. He followed up with a commanding 2nd place podium finish in Race 1 and then secured his first ProMX overall round win with a perfect Race 2 first-place finish, with a lead of 8.438 seconds ahead of Connolly.
Mitch Norris finished 16th in Race 1, narrowly holding off Mackenzie O’Bree. Unfortunately, his ProMX Round 5 journey came to an early end with a DNF taking him out of the race on lap 5.
Maxxis MX3
Wil Carpenter narrowly missed the race 1 top ten with an 11th-place finish in the stacked Maxxis MX 3 field. Moving on to race 2 despite pushing hard and putting up a fight, he would not be able to find that flow & crack that elusive top 10, taking a 19th place finish.
Kye Little faced a tough start in his Race 1 contention after an early DNF. He would put his head down to fight back to finish 33rd in Race 2 behind fellow local Noah Rochow.
Noah Rochow battled through mid-pack challenges to finish 25th in Race 1 and 32nd in Race 2.
Despite a hard charge, Harry Lashford unfortunantly could not crack into the top 40 qualifiers list, finishing his South Coast campaign early.
Ezilift MX Women
Emily Lambert started strong with 10th in qualifying and 6th in Race 1. However, an early retirement in Race 2 due to a crash ended her weekend. She currently ranks 11th in the 2024 Ezilfit MXW Championship.
Despite a promising start off the line, Amy Bartsch’s weekend at South Coast quickly turned into one she’d rather forget, as an early crash in race 1 forced her to retire shortly after, bringing her weekend to an abrupt end.
Tarja Morris, returning from a fractured spine earlier this year, secured her first Championship points with 20th in Race 1 and maintained consistency with 19th in Race 2, ending her first weekend back on a good note. On top of putting on a show on the track, Tarja shared her knowledge as one of the Ezilfit MX Women Track talk hosts.
Catch up on all the weekend’s results through Computime as our SA riders look forward to Round 6 of the ProMX Championship in Toowoomba, Queensland, on July 21st.