The Yamalube Yamaha Racing Team were at two-thirds capacity on the weekend for ProMX with Kaleb Barham on the side-lines due to a wrist injury, so it was left to Ryder Kingsford and Jayce Cosford to fly the team flag on the always technical Murray Bridge circuit.
It was Kingsford’s first visit to the Murray Bridge track and it took him some laps in practice before finding his feet and getting snare a top five position in qualifying and with it some confidence into the two motos scheduled that day.
Kingsford was off to a solid start in race one and inside the top ten on the opening lap when on the exit of a fast, sweeping right hand turn at the back of the track, he was hit by another rider and crashed heavily over the back of a berm.
He regained his composure and remounted his bent up bike and re-joined the race. At the end of laps one he was over a minute behind the leaders and 30 seconds behind the rider in second last place. He had a long and lonely race in front of him.
The first half of the race was just trying to reel in the pack and get his way into the top twenty and get some points. With five minutes to go, he had cracked the top twenty, but it wasn’t over. In the last five minutes, Kingsford passed another ten riders to cross the line in tenth place in a remarkable ride that would have barely been noticed by the spectators track side.
Between the motos, he took off his boots to find his toes throbbing and swelling quickly to the point where getting his foot back in the boot for moto two was tough. And tough he was as he then went back at it again in moto two, coming from outside the top ten on lap one to charge his way through to make a final lap pass into third. The pass didn’t last as he was hung up on a lap rider, but he crossed the line in fourth place and his 10-4 results gave him fifth for the round and moved his to second in the championship.
“I am feeling pretty sore now,” Kingsford said post-race. “My toes are swollen, and I am generally sore all over, the only fortunate thing was it was my rear brake foot, not the gear level so I was able to ride with it.
“I got hit pretty hard and went over the berm. The bike was bent up as I could feel the sub frame was twisted and the bars weren’t perfect, but I just got back into the race and did what I could.
“I felt I rode pretty well all day, so happy with out that went and the tram did a great job of getting my bike turned around for moto two. I will get my toes looked and then look to get things back on track at the net round in Toowoomba,” Kingsford said.
Teammate Jayce Cosford also tasted the Murray Bridge soil more than he would have liked with a couple of crashes in race one, then he stalled the bike in race two. Cosford finished with 11-7 results on the weekend and not sits seventh on the championship but well within stroking distance of the top five.
“I still struggled with my qualifying and even my moto 1 where I just don’t have enough speed to match the front guys,” Cosford explains. “Moto 1 I had an ok start and was moving forward but then crashed and dropped a heap of positions and then had a small tip over a little later in the moto.
“Race two was much better as I had a good start and was into second place on the opening laps. I lost a bit of flow in the middle part of the race and then picked it back up only to stall in and lose a few more spots. Seventh isn’t great, but it was good to run up the front for a while and be in the race,” Cosford signs off.
Round Six of the ProMX Championship hits the rolling red hills of Echo Valley in Toowoomba on July 21.
