Report Hawkstone Park

The Estonian Express takes Hawkstone by storm!

Hawkstone Park International, March 6, 2010

Admittedly Tanel Leok was ‘only’ drafted in as a late replacement for Mike Alessi and Kevin Strijbos at the Hawkstone Park International. However The LS Motors-Honda rider happily traded his free weekend in for some moto action and returned the favour with outstanding results. Tanel dominated the first moto and crossed the line with a stunning 42-second lead over Marc De Reuver. He also managed to win the combined Superfinal ahead of Roczen and Ramon. Not too shabby for a lazy Sunday!

‘Master timekeeper’ Leok started off the day on the right foot with a convincing pole over 1,6 seconds faster than his nearest opponent. The 24-year old produced a similar performance in the opening moto to take a start to finish win ahead of De reuver, Ramon, Nagl and Desalle after powering to the holeshot. The second moto at the popular Shropshire event provided further proof of the lethal Leok-CRF450R combo. Tanel succesfully carved to the front twice, posting the fastest lap of the race in the process, and closed the gap to frontrunner Ramon in the ultimate lap. Unfortunately he lost out on the MX1 overall after stalling the bike. Leok would cross the line in sixth. Traditionally the Hawkstone Park International was capped off by the Superfinal where MX1 and MX2 bikes mix it up in a handicap race.

When the MX1 gate dropped after the MX2 boys were out of sight ‘The Estonian Express’ not only claimed another holeshot, but caught every single man in front of him including the blazingly fast Ken Roczen. Tanel was the only MX1 rider to do so, holding an 8.2 margin over the German kid and more than 30 seconds over third placed Ramon.

Tanel Leok: ”I had a lot of fun in England this weekend! The conditions were nearly perfect and I felt good on the bike. The first moto and the Superfinal were close to perfect, I also took the holeshot in these races. Life was harder in the second moto when I crashed while I was setting up a move on Desalle for third. My speed was fine and I succeeded to come back to the lead, but unfortunately I stalled the engine. We have been working hard the last couple of weeks to keep on improving and it’s really cool to see how the pointers that Marnicq gives are pushing me forward. I’m also happy for myself and the team to get some results in the bag because the pace was already there before but we’ve had some bad luck as well.”

Hawkstone Park

MX1 Moto1 1.Tanel Leok (LS Motors-Honda), 2. Marc De Reuver, 3. Steve Ramon, 4. Max Nagl, 5. Clément Desalle, 6. Gareth Swanepoel, 7. Tom Soderstrom, 8. James Noble, 9. Bas Verhoeven, 10. Carl Nunn
MX 1 Moto 2 1.Steve Ramon, 2. Max Nagl, 3. Clément Desalle, 4. Gareth Swanepoel, 5. Evgeny Bobryshev, 6. Tanel Leok (LS Motors-Honda), 7. Bas
Verhoeven, 8. Jamie Lewis, 9. Carl Nunn, 10. Yentel Martens,
MX1 Classification 1.    Steve Ramon 35 ptn, 2. Max Nagl 30, 3. Tanel Leok (LS Motors-Honda) 30, 4. Clément Desalle 26, 5. Gareth Swanepoel 23, 6. Marc
De Reuver 17, 7. Bas Verhoeven 16, 8. Evgeny Bobryshev 14, 9. Carl Nunn 13, 10. Yentel Martens 11

MX1-MX2 Superfinal 1.Tanel Leok (LS Motors-Honda), 2. Ken Roczen, 3. Steve Ramon, 4. Marc De Reuver, 5. Clément Desalle, 6. Gareth Swanepoel, 7. Bas
Verhoeven, 8. Evgeny Bobryshev, 9. Max Nagl, 10. Arnaud Tonus

NEXT RACE: Tanel Leok and team mate Davide Guarneri head to Italy again on the weekend of the 13th and 14th of March for round 3 of the Assoluti d’Italia in Gallarate.

Images: Ray Archer