Mixed Weather Conditions in Germany

Round three of the Goldspeed European Quad Championship took place this weekend in Reutlinger, Near Stuttgart and the KTM UK Team had a good weekend with their riders Mark Watson and James Hellewell despite the changing weather conditions during race day. The KTM UK Quad Team had to miss round two in France as it clashed with one of the British Championship events.

The team headed to Germany in good spirits and despite the changing weather, Mark Watson gained a second and ninth place with youngster James Hellewell securing 14th and 11th. The track was fast and well made but with limited passing places which hindered the riders slightly.

Cumbrian rider Mark Watson described his weekend as follows "Saturday's qualifying sessions didn't go quite how I would have wanted as we only got one session instead of two so we struggled to get the correct set up in such a short period of time. We managed to make a few tweaks and changes to suspension and gearing over night which proved correct as I posted the fastest time in morning warm up.

As the race got underway I settled into second place out of the gate in race one. I held second position for the duration of the race even after making a small mistake at the half way point which allowed third placed man Romain Couprie to catch me up. The pair of us were closing in on the leader but with the lack of passing places I had to settled for second but it was extremely close. I was happy with this result after what had happened on Saturday I didn't know where we'd end up in the race.

The second race turned out to be very wet, I got a terrible start and struggled to get out of the gate but despite this I worked my way through to fourth place and in a battle for third by the third lap. Disaster struck on lap four when I got a rear flat tyre and I slowly dropped backwards through the pack to ninth place, I managed to hold this place until the finish.

I ended up in fourth place overall which I'm pretty happy with, I was a little disappointed with race two but that's racing and these things happen, I still managed to get points in the bag."

Yorkshireman James Hellewell said "I got it all a bit wrong this weekend, everything I did all the opposite happened. I felt I was going really well throughout the weekend but the weather conditions totally played against me. It rained before the start of the first race so I changed to the tyres to suit the wet and muddy conditions and as we pulled up to the start line the sun shone and the track dried very quickly which totally put a stop to all my plans.

Despite this I did get a good start and was sat in about sixth or seventh but on the fourth corner a stone hit my kill switch and snapped it and the bike came to a total stop. I was nearly a lap down when I finally got it going again and managed to work my way through to 14th place.

It was dry at the start of the second moto so we went with dry tyres for the race, I was half way around the sighting lap when the heavens decided to open and it rained extremely hard. It was too late to change the tyres so I just had to get on with it, I knew I had to try and get a good start and try and hold my position. I was about eighth or ninth but the rain just kept on falling which made the laps very difficult. My pit-board said 'Ride Safe' so I knew I just needed to keep my head down and do nothing stupid I finished in 11th.

I'm not too upset about the results as the weather played a massive part to it and we just choose the wrong tyres for both races, I've gained points which is always a good thing when you travel so far from home."

The KTM UK Quad team will be heading to Scotland this weekend to race at Duns in the British Championship.