On The Pegs August 2018 - Volume 3 - Issue 8 | Page 114

On The Pegs
P 114
JERONI FAJARDO
For the first time this season Jack Price
- Gas Gas came out on top in the battle
to be best British rider in tenth after
James Dabill - Beta slumped to twelfth.
With three rounds to go Bou now
leads Fajardo by thirteen points with
Busto another six in arrears. Raga is
fourth a further thirteen points behind.
Italy’s Alex Brancati - Beta was a
double winner at the Trial2 Women sea-
son-opener in Japan and the talented
sixteen-year-old did it again today with
a commanding victory over Norwegian
Erika Melchior - Sherco.
Brancati got her worst score out of
the way early with a three on the open-
ing section of lap one and from then
on quickly found her groove, dropping
only two further marks to end the day
on five. Melchior was in touch at the
halfway stage with her first-lap score of
seven placing her just three marks be-
hind, but an expensive lap-two total of
eighteen pushed her up to twenty-five.
America’s Maddie Hoover - Gas Gas,
who took a pair of runner-up finishes
in Japan, was a further six marks off
the pace in third, but still twelve ahead
of fourth-placed Marine Aurieres - Gas
Gas from France and fourteen in front
of Britain’s Alicia Robinson - Beta who
finished fifth.
Competing on home soil, FIM TrialE
Cup pre-event favourite Loris Gubian -
Gas Gas threw away his chances of vic-
tory on the very first section of the Trial
when he got it all wrong and dropped
three marks straight off the bat. By con-
trast, Japanese veteran Kenichi Kuroya-
ma - Yamaha recorded a clean opening