A couple of weeks ago the excellent Desertmartin hosted the penultimate round of the Red Bull Pro National Championship. When any event bearing a Red Bull tag comes into town they bring with all the glitz and glamour expected of the iconic brand and Desertmartin was no exception. A full weekend schedule brought with it a stellar line up of youth motocross, old school 2-stroke racing and some high flying freestyle action with whips and tricks aplenty. But the main feature of the event, which everyone came to see was the Pro racing. The best of the best in Britain took on our very own Martin Barr but there was no stopping him as he sent every last one of them home with their tail between their legs! Here we revisit that weekend through the lens of local ace photographer Ryan Denney…
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Quite easily one of the best tracks in Ireland and Britain, if not Europe, every rider loves coming to race here. Why? Because the club pulls out all the stops when it comes to track preparation. Manicured to within an inch of its life the sand is always top notch, hard standing and permanent buildings to keep the show running smoothly, ‘the Desert’ is always ace and when Red Bull add a bit of colour to procedings it doesn’t get any better than this!
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Home Town Hero
Martin Barr was the home town hero. In fact he was so dominant this is about all his rivials got to see of him. Topping qualification by an enormous amount he holeshot both motos and quite frankly cleared off. For a moment we thought Brad Anderson may make a move in moto 2 but Barr was just playing him…
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Brad Anderson
Brad Anderson was trying… make no bones about. He hates to lose and would have liked nothing better than to bag a win, but on that day he just didn’t have the measure of Barr.
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This guy's traveling from left to right across your screen
A big part of the ‘high octane extreme excitement’ that the event portrays is the world of freestyle. For me, when it comes to hitting ramps I’m one of those that thinks when you’ve seen one trick you’ve seen them all. You can hang off the back of ‘er with your fingernails for all I care because unless you can throw down ‘old school’ whips like this guy… then you got nothing
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The Crockstar
Gordon Crockard is a big part of our sport, possibly our greatest rider of all time. On Saturday he returned to his love of two-strokes and topped the podium in the 250 class on his Relentless by TAS Suzuki. He wasn’t alone though as it became an Irish 1-2-3 with Stuart Edmonds and Michael Mahon getting the job done too.
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Bryan MacKenzie lays a flat one as he touches down to base from one of the ‘Deserts peaks.
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Glenn McCormick
With a maximum three wins to his name, local up and coming rider Glenn McCormick dominated the 125 Junior Fuchs Silkolene class…. nobody got close to challenge.
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Stuart Edmonds
Possibly one of the best images of the weekend. TM UK’s Stuart Edmonds scrubs the hell out of it.
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This guy kept the ‘chooons’ pumping all day. The sound system laid on was proper good! Everywhere around the paddock and out on the track a steady flow beats pumped out through the speakers.