Netherlands
The Cox Clan are synonymous with Off Road Racing, not only in South Africa but on the International Circuit too. Dad, Alfie is still one of the fastest ‘Ballies’ on two wheels out there. His older son Bradley Cox has at least 10 local championships to his name and is making waves on the international Rallye Raid scene. Younger brother Trey is also starting to make a name for himself.
It’s genetic you see…
Last week, 15 year old Trey was selected to represent SA in Holland for the FIM MX JUNIOR Championship. It was the second time for Trey as nine SA riders boarded the plane in July to compete in the 65,85 & 125cc classes.
Heerde, Holland was true to her reputation…. and the rain came down in buckets…
The weekend before the race, there was an ONK race which Trey raced and managed to qualify, finishing 7th out of 55 starters. After that, the rain fell relentlessly from the Thursday afternoon before the junior championship weekend.
Luckily, if you can call it that, 90% of the tracks in Holland are sand, so whilst the conditions were hectic it wasn’t tacky, cloggy mud. The MX club did an amazing job draining the track from the Friday afternoon through the night so that the event could take place.
Junior Worlds – Qualifying Practice
Each class has 25 minutes for the riders to put in their fastest lap. The 125 class had 92 entries from all the countries around the world. With so many riders, they had to divide them up into 2 groups of which 18 would go through. The rest of the riders would then go through to the LCQ, (Last Chance Qualifier – for the uninitiated) Race of which 4 riders and 2 reserves would be chosen.
There is an art to qualifying. You cannot treat it as a race, but rather you need to try and have a “clear” run. In other words, work out when you should put in the hot lap. Older and more experienced brother, Bradley worked out a strategy for Trey that they decided would work the best: 2 fast 1 slow ; 2 fast 1 slow; 1fast and come into the pit box.
The computer times would then show where he was placed, then if necessary there would be enough time to put in another hot lap. It did work and Trey qualified 17th, so he was straight in for the main motos on Sunday with no need to fight it out in the LCQ. However qualifying 17th meant that he would go to the start gate for both motos on Sunday in 34th position because of the 2 groups.
As it turned out, Trey was the only SA Team rider to qualify and make it into the race on Sunday. Here we need to point out that the races are 25 minutes plus 2 laps, as opposed to our SA Racing of 15 mins plus one lap, meaning fitness and stamina play a huge role.
Sunday – Race Day
Moto 1
The clouds cleared off and the sun came out, making for excellent racing conditions. Unfortunately, things weren’t as rosy when the gates dropped, Trey got a bit of a bad start and dropped all the way down to 39th, but the Cox genes kicked in and he fought his way back through the field to 31st
Moto 2
Again, it was another less than ideal start, but also remember, the international circus is at a significantly higher level than anything we have here. Trey then had a goggle issue on lap 3, with the mud jamming the pulling mechanism.
He managed to get his goggles off and threw them away, opting to race and deal with the mud without them and once again had to fight back from almost last! He still managed to finish 31st.
So two 31st’s for the event gave him 35th overall, not what he was hoping for, but a good learning curve and some invaluable exposure on the International Circuit for him as well as South Africa.
We look forward to more of our youngsters making it onto the International scene, it can only be good for our industry…
