Cahors, the historic French city an hour north of Toulouse was the venue for the 5th Supermoto of Nations and 8000 sun kissed partisan fans made sure the atmosphere was electric as the French dominated on home soil

After 2 years in the inaccessible hinterlands of Bulgaria, the Supermoto of Nations made a welcome return to Western Europe, a move that the FIM will certainly feel was vindicated with a record number of 22 teams entered including a surprisingly strong team from Brazil and another from Argentina. With no other meetings clashing and team politics taking a backseat for a change, the World stars were out in force for the strongest entry yet seen. With a weekend of bright Sunshine and temperatures in the early 20’s the meeting lived up to the hype with some fantastic racing in front of a very large & noisy crowd.

ACU Events along with a number of private sponsors provided backing for two teams from the UK. Team Manager David Dearden had a difficult task picking his riders, in previous years the Senior team had effectively chosen itself but with Christian Iddon lost to road racing, Matt Winstanley was the only UK racer that competed in the World Championships in 2010. After a disappointing year on unreliable bikes Matt had switched to Honda days before the event & this would be the first meeting he had ridden the bikes. To back Matt up, Dearden chose Skyzone Racing’s Chris Hodgson & Richard Blakeman.

Hodgson had 3 previous Nations events under his belt and the Cumbria youngster was battling for the British Championship, Blakeman is having a good solid year in the British and had past experience both in World & Nations events. For the Junior team it was decided to take riders who would be able to compete as Juniors again next year and gain valuable experience in the process, so Liverpool’s Lee Williams, Swanley’s Ben Robb & Norfolk teenager Lewis Cornish got the nod. All the riders had a real job on their hands as only Winstanley had ridden on the control Goldentyres before whereas the Italian, German & French championships all used the Italian rubber domestically.

The qualifying races quickly showed the depth of talent on display with France Italy Finland & Germany all having Factory riders in their teams, the long straight giving the works bikes an easy pass, Matt Winstanley rode superbly on his stock Honda to finish 4th in Race 1, Hodgson battled race long with Belgium veteran Gaillard to finally pass him on the last lap to secure a fine 7th place but it was Richard Blakeman who surprised the small contingent of British supporters by holding a strong 6th place all race until the final corner when a missed gear let Spanish Champion Llados through. After the qualifying races it was a very pleased Team GB who lined up in 4th place behind France, Germany and Finland.

The Junior team didn’t fare so well, a combination of mechanical gremlins, bad luck with crashes & sheer self-generated pressure to succeed left them deflated and disappointed in 18th place with only the first 16 teams to go through. Having come a long way it looked as though the journey would be in vain for the British juniors but some back room arm twisting by David Dearden managed to get the 3 lads plus the Argentinian and Latvian teams a ride in the French National Support races. Starting from the back row of the grid in both races the youngsters relished their pressure free opportunity & Robb finished 5th overall, Williams 7th and Cornish 14th amid some very fast company.

In the first of the main races, Winstanley & Hodgson lined up. Matt made his customary quick start but disaster soon befell Hodgson with three crashes during his race. Matt held onto 7th spot with Chris a lowly 27th. In race two Chris Hodgson lined up with Richard Blakeman, this time Chris was subject to some bad luck in the extensive off road section getting caught up with a fallen rider but he put his head down to finish a fine 11th with Blakeman getting a solid 19th from his 20th position on the grid. Race 3 saw the Brits with an outside chance of grabbing 4th place. Matt made his usual lightning start but his standard Honda didn’t have the legs to hold on to the fast bikes and had to settle for a solid 6th spot. Richard Blakeman was punted off in the dirt on lap one and managed to move up from last to 24th.

At the final flag, Team GB finished 6th mainly thanks to the solid riding of Winstanley who having never ridden his Honda’s in anger before the meeting showed that he is still a class act. The Francesco Zerbi trophy went to the French (Van Den Bosch, Chareyre, Grelier) followed by Italy (Gozzini, Lazzarini, Ravaglia) Germany Junior, Finland and Germany. The results were somewhat immaterial in the end as the main winner was the sport of Supermoto. This meeting went a long way to dispel any notion that it is in the doldrums, proving that if you put top riders on a top track and promote it you can put on a great show that the public will want to watch.

Team GB would like to thank ACU Events, Nameplate Services, Spiral Gfx, Muk Junkie Bikesure and L R Designs for their invaluable support in getting the teams to the event.