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COPPINS HAS COMPANY AT HONDA:
Motocross star Josh Coppins will be in good company when he guns for the
world title this year.
The expat Kiwi is one of ten riders to choose Honda bikes in the premier
class, MX1.
No other brand has more than four riders, on the list of 26 guaranteed
acceptances just released by championship organisers Youthstream.
\"That\'s quite a change,\" commented Coppins, veteran of nine years on the
world stage and former title runner-up.
\"In the past Honda has been under-represented and one or two other brands
have been the most popular ones.\"
Among the other Honda riders will be Coppins\' teammates in the
factory-backed CAS squad, Gordon Crockard of Ireland and Yoshi Atsuta of
Japan, as well as former two-time world champ Mickael Pichon (France) and
last year\'s Danish high flier Brian Jorgensen.
\"As far as I know all the Honda guys have chosen the new four-stroke 450,\"
Coppins added.
\"Last year we weren\'t too sure whether the four-stroke would be good enough
against the 250 two-strokes we\'d been running, but it didn\'t take long at
all for the 450 to come out on top.
\"Pretty much all through the field, on all brands, people are choosing
four-stroke. I think there\'ll be only a couple of two-strokes racing.\"
Four-time world champion Joel Smets of Belgium will campaign a new
four-stroke at the factory Suzuki team, where he sensationally replaces
Pichon this year.
Among the two-strokes is tipped to be the factory Kawasaki of Frenchman
Antoine Meo, even though his brand collaborated with Suzuki in the
development of their long-awaited new four-stroke.
Of particular interest will be the entry to motocross of the Italian brand
Aprilia, better known in road racing.
Pre-season favouritism has them all chasing seven-time world champ Stefan
Everts of Belgium, who won the title on a Yamaha four-stroke last year.
Coppins, 26, is currently in Italy preparing for his all-out assault on the
title which begins in Belgium in March and continues across 16 rounds to
the final in South Africa in September.
Youthstream has accepted teams rather than riders but the line-ups are
expected to look something like this:
CAS Honda: Coppins, Crockard, Atsuta
Martin Honda: Pichon, Jorgensen
Rinaldi Yamaha: Everts, Cedric Melotte (Belgium)
Geboers Suzuki: Smets, Kevin Strijbos (Belgium)
De Groot Kawasaki: Meo
Red Bull KTM: Kenneth Gundersen (Norway), Steve Ramon (Belgium)
JK Yamaha: Luigi Seguy (France), Saso Kragelj (Slovakia)
Sarholz Honda: Avo Leok (Estonia), Ken De Dijcker (Belgium)
RWJ Honda: James Noble (GB), Stuart Flockhart (GB)
Multitek Honda: Paul Cooper (South Africa)
Kurz Suzuki: Antti Pyrhonen (Finland), Josef Dobes (Czech)
Chambers KTM: Chris Burnham (GB), Mark Hucklebridge (GB)
Aprilia: Javier Garcia Vico (Spain), Manuel Monni (Italy)
TM: Johnny Lindhe (Sweden)
Ian RJ Miles
