Coppins 07 World FIM thread

**paturoa** · 13th June 2007, 19:08

Stolen from Youthstream...

As for Coppins, he was happy with his weekend in France, knowing that he can always improve and his championship challenge is stronger all the time.

First heat I was happy how I rode," Coppins said. "The second heat couple of small things that were not right, we need to work on them. I am not saying I could have beaten Steve, but I could have ridden a little more comfortable if he sorted those things. This weekend wasn't that easy for me. Every week in Italy we are making changes suspension wise, the engine is pretty cool, we are not making any changes there, but just some changes in suspension. It's not that I have a problem, it could just be better at some tracks. I am not looking ahead enough probably. I am not looking at what the tracks are going to do. I am more working on previous races and so far we have been to a lot of different tracks. This is the first time we rode really hard pack.

What Coppins finds difficult is that he is always racing against different riders. While he remains strong some riders are struggling to put together consistent results.

"Week in week out I am racing different guys. In France it was Ramon, in Japan it was Mackenzie and Brown, in Portugal it was Strijbos, Germany was Philippaerts. It is like these guys can go quick one week, but they can't recover enough for the next Grand Prix. Ramon and Philippaerts are coming strong. Ramon wasn't so aggressive in France, he just rode really well, he was going for his passes and he had better lines than me. He is good at the moment and he is racing all the Belgian and Dutch championship races, so it will be interesting to see how long he can last. Philippaert is up and down, but he is also strong."

**paturoa** · 15th June 2007, 20:31

Bulgaria this weekend

**paturoa** · 17th June 2007, 11:24

Josh is 3rd fastest from Sat and Scott was 26th.

I don't know what the cutoff is for Scott to make the finals.

**paturoa** · 17th June 2007, 22:54

Josh was 2nd in Moto 1 behind Barragan, and ahead of Pourcel and Ramon. Barrragan was about 150 points behind Josh before this.

Scott was 17th.

**paturoa** · 18th June 2007, 06:08

and 1st in the second moto, ahead of Ramon in both races for 47 points.

After 8 rounds a 97 point lead with 7 rounds to go.

Scott was 13th in the second moto for best result so far this year, 15th overall for the day (12 points), and now has 20 points overall and is 26th.

**denill** · 18th June 2007, 07:20

Date: 17 June 2007.

Press release:

Josh Coppins wins in Bulgaria to build on MX1 championship lead.

New Zealander, Joshua Coppins, has won his fifth Motocross GP of the 2007 season by dominating the MX1 class in Sevlievo, Bulgaria. The factory Yamaha Rinaldi racer now boasts a massive 97 point lead with his exceptional 2-1 performance bringing him one step closer to his MX1 title aspirations.

Moto 1 action saw Coppins spin off the gate and miss out on the all important hole-shot to Spaniard, Jonathan Barragan. The Kiwi still managed to sneak up the inside of the first turn and emerged third behind Italian, David Philippaerts. An aggressive but clean pass before the mechanics area saw Coppins take over second spot from Philippaerts with the Italian losing the front end as he tried to retaliate later in the lap. A hard charging Sebastien Pourcel was never able to make a real impression on Coppins and when the Frenchman made an error later in the race, Coppins was able to relax and cruise home to second behind a well deserved win by Jonathan Barragan.

A better start in Moto 2 would have Coppins and American, Mike Brown dicing for the hole-shot. Brown came out tops and left Coppins and new championship rival, Steve Ramon scrapping for second and third. Coppins quickly made his way past the Belgian and had to fend off a heated challenge before he made his move on Brown two laps later. Coppins checked out and then controlled his lead to bring home the win, ten seconds ahead of Ramon, inevitably extending his MX1 championship lead to just 3 points short of a century.

“I took me too long to get through to second in the first moto and that gave Barragan space to run. I closed him down a little but then had a bit of a moment on one of the sections so I decided to take it easy and settle for second. My start was better in the second moto and once I got past Ramon and Brown I found a good rhythm and rode a strong race. I want to keep this rolling and look forward to the next GP in Sweden.” commented Coppins.

Coppins will take a weekend off before heading to Uddevalla in Sweden in two weeks time for round 9 of the FIM Motocross world championship.

Race results:

MX1 Race 1

1 Barragan, Jonathan ESP KTM

2 Coppins, Joshua NZL Yamaha

3 Pourcel, Sebastien FRA Kawasaki

4 Ramon, Steve BEL Suzuki

5 Philippaerts, David ITA KTM

6 Bill, Julien SUI Honda

7 Brown, Mike USA Honda

8 de Dycker, Ken BEL Honda

9 Nemeth, Kornel HUN Suzuki

10 Vanni, Julien FRA Honda

11 Leok, Tanel EST Kawasaki

12 de Reuver, Marc NED Yamaha

13 Noble, James GBR Honda

14 van Daele, Marvin BEL Honda

15 Coulon, Cyrille FRA Honda

MX1 Race 2

1 Coppins, Joshua NZL Yamaha
2 Ramon, Steve BEL Suzuki

3 Philippaerts, David ITA KTM
4 Pourcel, Sebastien FRA Kawasaki

5 Barragan, Jonathan ESP KTM
6 de Dycker, Ken BEL Honda

7 Vanni, Julien FRA Honda

8 Brown, Mike USA Honda

9 de Reuver, Marc NED Yamaha

10 Allier, Thomas FRA Kawasaki

11 Leok, Tanel EST Kawasaki

12 Nemeth, Kornel HUN Suzuki

13 Columb, Scott NZL Suzuki

14 Crockard, Gordon IRL Honda

15 Noble, James GBR Honda

MX1 Championship standings:

1 Coppins, J. NZL 368

2 Ramon, Steve BEL 271

3 Philippaerts, D. ITA 222

4 Pourcel, S. FRA 222

5 Barragan, J. ESP 214

6 Strijbos, K. BEL 211

7 Brown, Mike USA 196

8 Leok, Tanel EST 179

9 de Dycker, Ken BEL 178

10 Mackenzie, B. GBR 154

11 Noble, James GBR 153

12 de Reuver, M. NED 136

13 Priem, Manuel BEL 125

14 Nemeth, Kornel HUN 120

15 Nagl, M. GER 107

**denill** · 18th June 2007, 07:26

And some Bulgarian pics:

**Danger** · 18th June 2007, 08:01

Well done Josh!

**NordieBoy** · 18th June 2007, 09:08

Good one Scott!

**sugilite:Me** · 18th June 2007, 09:47

Wow, way to go Josh!

**Danger** · 18th June 2007, 10:04

Yeah a good result for Scott too, lets not forget. Good effort. Lets hope he can build from here.

**paturoa** · 29th June 2007, 19:07

And Prumm too!

**paturoa** · 1st July 2007, 09:48

Wet track for Saturday, Josh 6th qual, can't see Scott in the results and Katherine 3rd

**denill** · 1st July 2007, 09:54

Originally Posted by paturoa

Wet track for Saturday, Josh 6th qual, can't see Scott in the results and Katherine 3rd

Scott's out. After Aichwald scott said: “Monday morning and I was back in Belgium and had a physio check out my shoulder injury,” said Columb. “There was no major damage, he believed it popped out and went back in, a sub dislocation or something like that. Hopefully with rest it will be okay again soon but I won’t be racing in the Swedish GP this weekend. The team has told me to take some time off to recover.”