MXGP. Even more surprising is that whilst Yamaha has seen winners in EMX125, EMX250 and WMX, it has never won in either MXGP or MX2, and Maxime Desprey’s win in EMX250 in 2015 is the only win at Trentino for Kawasaki. Sadly for them, 2018 was another year where the wins went to KTM, only this time it was Jeffrey Herlings who won in the premier class beating last year’s home hero Cairoli, in his own back yard, or as JH84 referred to it as ‘The Lion’s Den’. Prado won in MX2 and in the WMX category we saw an impressive performance from Suzuki’s Larissa Papenmeier who went 1-3 to secure her first win since 2010. In EMX125 presented by FMF Racing, a young Italian by the name of Emilio Scuteri shone in front of his home fans with a stunning 2-1 to stand on the top step of the podium. Portugal As we arrived in Portugal one week later it seemed like all anybody wanted to talk about was the weather as it pretty much hadn’t
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stopped raining for around two weeks prior to the GP. Whilst the Águeda circuit has a hard, sandy base, like all tracks, it will only take so much water before it becomes saturated and eventually un-ride able. However, when the rain eventually eased up on Thursday, the MXGP track crew went to work and literally turned over the whole circuit, bringing the dry dirt to the top before ‘tracking it’ back in. Yes, it might have been soft underneath but given the amount of rain, you couldn’t have had a better racetrack to go racing. Even the riders drooled over it! Before we had even turned a wheel though, there was the small matter of the Media Opportunity and rider’s signing session in the centre of Águeda on Friday. A short drive from the circuit, we crossed the Cértima River and into the heart of the city. The venue for the event was the CAA or Centro de Artes de Águeda where there was a vast array of vintage scooters and motorcycles on display, one of which was the very rare and one-
of-a-kind, Macal Cross 125cc from 1980, which was built in Águeda; it housed a Casal engine which was also built in Portugal. The scooters that were on display were featured in an exhibition ‘of two halves’ with bikes that came from Germany, the USA, France, Japan and Italy, built after the Second World War. The other half featured bikes from Portugal, such as Famel, Macal and SIS Sachs, which were all built in Águeda. All-in-all it was a pleasant way to spend the afternoon and the exhibition runs from February until April. As well as MXGP and MX2, the support classes on show were WMX, who were making their second appearance of the season, along with EMX250, who we hadn’t seen since Redsand. After finishing second in a three-way-tie at Trentino, New Zealand’s Courtney Duncan eventually came out on top on her Altherm JCR Yamaha with a solid 1-1 performance. It was the first time that WMX had raced here