Round six of the ProMX proved to be a day of highlights for the Yamalube Yamaha Racing Team with Kaleb Barham winning his first ProMX MX2 race, Jayce Cosford got his first ProMX podium and Ryder Kingsford maintained his second place in the championship.
There was a lot to like about the impressive performances of all the team riders on the weekend and all can leave round six of the ProMX Championship with their head held high.After being side-lined for the past six weeks with injury, Kaleb Barham, wasn’t going to miss his local race at Toowoomba and he was determined to make the most of it. His day started well with P2 in qualifying and oh so close to taking pole, but it mattered little when the gates dropped in moto one for Barham.
He leapt from the gates and ripped his way into the lead. Championship leader, Brodie Connelly, slotted in behind him and then made a quick pass to snatch the lead from Barham. The Toowoomba local then went to school on Connelly, picked up some good lines and by lap six found a way back passed. Slowly but surely Barham was able to put some space between himself and Connelly until the gap reached five seconds with two laps remaining.
Connelly put in a late race charge but couldn’t make it happen and Barham cross the finish line for his first ProMX MX2 race win and prove to be a very popular winner with the crowd.
Race two was also shaping up well for Barham. He moved quickly into fourth place and locking to grab third at the end of lap one when he clipped the tyre of the rider in front and went down. He re-joined the race in sixteenth place and spend the next twenty- five minutes trying to claw back as many points as possible. He moved all the way back to seventh with his 1-7 results giving him 39 points and only one point away from second.
“I saw Brodie got the lead on lap one so I maybe panicked a little and tried to rush a rutty corner entry and just over balanced and went down, which was frustrating, but I’m happy with how I rode all day,” Barham offers. “I gave it everything that I had in both races and can leave here saying I left it all on the table.
“This is now the benchmark of what I can achieve and the effort I need to give every time I race and with two rounds left to go, hopefully I can get on the podium and finish the championship strongly,” Barham ends.
His lead up form indicated that a good result was just around the corner and on the weekend it happened with Jayce Cosford finishing on the podium with a third place finish. Cosford went 3-3 for the day and finished on the same number of points as Reid Taylor, but Taylor had the better result in race two which gave him second on the day.
The podium result isn’t surprising but it typical Cosford way, it didn’t come easy. He qualified a lowly fourteenth and some distance from the lead group but when the gates dropped and the results mattered, Cosford put in two rock solid performances to take his first career MX2 podium and leapfrog himself to fifth in the points standings.
“A cross between relief and happiness,” Cosford expressed at the podium. “I always put in during the week and I feel like my riding during the week was always pretty good, but I never have been able to turn that into a result, so to finally get on the box was a combination of those two emotions as I knew I could do it, I just found it hard to get it done.
“But it’s cool because the team kept working and believing in me so having them all at the podium was a nice moment and hope we have a few more of them before the season is out.”
On paper finishing 14-5 for ninth overall doesn’t look good. Dig a little deeper, and you find that at the Murray Bridge round, Kingsford race the final moto with some seriously swollen and ugly toes, than a week later his foot caught a rut will training and did further dames to his ankle and foot and racing on the weekend likely unlikely even just days prior to the event.
But one thing you can’t question with Ryder Kingsford is his toughness and he soldiered on through the weekend on a red clay based track infested with ruts which has to be the nightmare of any rider carrying an ankle or knee injury.
Despite two tip overs in race one and give the ankle a good work out, he finished fourteenth, then as he always does, he rebounded with a top five in race two to claim ninth for the round and keep his second place in the championship.
“I just wanted to get through the round and stay in the points hunt,” Kingsford explain, “but I was doing it tough in that first one with a crash at the start, then another fell directly in front of me a lap later costing me plenty of positions, so it didn’t start well.
“But race two was much better and I rode better so it was nice the finish the day on a good note. I ran third for a lot of that race but just didn’t want to push the injury anymore so I took the common sense approach and got as many points as possible.
“With a few weeks between now and the final two rounds, hopefully my ankle can keep getting better and I will be back to full strength by round seven at MX Farm.
Two rounds remain in the 2024 ProMX Championship with MX Farm on August 11 and QMP August 17 and 18.