Townley Misfortunate in Budds Creek

Budds Creek Raceway in Maryland hosted the fourth round of the Lucas Oil AMA Pro Motocross championship over the weekend and it was another exciting outing for Lucas Oil – Troy Lee – Honda racer, Ben Townley.

Perfect track and weather conditions would make for a great days racing and after qualifying in 8th spot in the morning timed training sessions, Townley rolled onto the line for moto 1. The Kiwi started inside the top ten and quickly made his way through the pack to settle in fourth behind series leader Ryan Dungey. Giving chase lap after lap Townley battled with Chad Reed and Josh Grant and came under pressure from Reed with five minutes to go. The Australian made his move however Townley seemed to have a technical problem which turned out to be a broken fuel pump, thus forcing him to slow his pace as he nursed his machine home in the final laps to finish 14th.

A slightly better start in moto 2 saw Townley emerge in 6th on the opening lap. He quickly moved past Alessi, and then hunted down first moto winner Andrew Short. ‘BT’ passed the factory Honda rider and then focused on Brett Metcalfe. Making his move on the Australian, Townley moved into 3rd however a charging Josh Grant had followed him through the pack and with two laps to go he stole the podium position from him. Townley would not sit back and let it happen so he set up Grant on an off camber turn and passed him to secure 3rd spot at the checkered flag.

"It’s been another eventful weekend for me" explained Townley "I really enjoyed the track and the organizers put a lot of effort into it so it so it was just perfect for racing. There are still some areas we need to work on and the goal is to put two strong motos together . I know if I can get out the start there is no reason why I can’t win motos and then hopefully the overall. "

The series heads to Thunder Valley in Lakewood Colorado next weekend.