Date: 22 February 2009

With the international motocross season now firmly underway, Kawasaki’s Factory MX1 racer, Gareth Swanepoel headed to the hillside circuit of Valence in France this past weekend for a start studded international event. The South African, who had been ill all week with a stomach virus, made the call on Friday morning to go ahead and race the event.

During the 2 free practice sessions on Saturday Gareth and the Kawasaki Racing Team made some good improvements to the handling on the bike, allowing the more comfortable Swanepoel to post some promising lap times.

Sunday morning’s timed qualifying session panned out well for ‘Swanie’. He felt good on the undulating circuit posting 11th fastest time, just 2 seconds off pole.

Heat 1 saw a good start for Gareth as he put the powerful KX450F-SR in 7th position on lap one. Not feeling a 100% from the week’s illness Gareth rode very tight on the bike, as he dropped back slightly in the pack. Before long the determined Swanepoel got his rhythm going and picked up his pace as he blasted the Kawasaki to a 10th position by the chequered flag.

The rain came down for heat 2 leaving a slick track for the MX1 field to contend with. Swanepoel did not get good drive, sliding on the mud as the gate dropped, leaving him trailing the elite pack through the first corner. With his work cut out “Swanie” charged on through the competition ending up with a positive 11th position at the end of the race.

For the “Super Final”, a mix of the top MX1 and MX2 riders together, the team decided to try some more changes to see if they could improve the handling further. Unfortunately Swanepoel had to retire from the race with a technical problem with the rear tire.

After an eventful weekend Swanepoel had to this to say: ”Today was better than expected for me. I have been sick all week and didn’t even expect to be able to ride the full race distance, but luckily my fitness paid off. We made many suspension changes this past week in testing and these really helped me get the bike handling how I want it. Although the end result today was not the best, I am happy we are progressing with both mine and the bike’s performance as we edge towards the first GP”.

Swanepoel is scheduled for another week of testing before he heads into the first round of the British championship on the 8th of March in Canada Heights.