Michek sweeps day one

Back to the roots, the MX3 world championship joined the premier world championship classes (MX1 and MX2) at the historically famous and magnificent track of Maggiora, Italy for round five of the 2013 FIM Motocross MX3 World Championship. With sunlit clouds crowding the skies, any beam shinning through seemed to be hitting Martin Michek as he swept day one, topping the charts in the timed training and then going on to dominate race one. When the gates dropped for race one it was the man with first pick of the gate Martin Michek who led the way around turn one. Although Michek had a strong lap time leading into the race it wasn’t enough to hold back an early challenge from the current MX3 world champion Matthias Walkner. Within less than a quarter of a lap Walkner had snatched away the lead and began to make a charge. While it would seem Walkner would be fired up after a bit of bad luck saw him loose a lot of points last weekend in Slovenia, the Austrian couldn’t get it together here in Italy. Charging from behind with soaring confidence was Czech Martin Michek who seemed eager to prove he is the best rider to race today. After 5 laps of tossing the lead back and forth with Walkner, Michek finally made a pass that stuck and charged away never to look back. Meanwhile, the pass from Michek seemed to have thrown Walkner right off his rhythm as he came under pressure from a trio of riders in the form of red plate holder Klemen Gercar, Czech Petr Smitka and German Christian Brockle. The trio Gercar, Smitka and Brockle took advantage of Walkner’s vulnerability with all three going by him in a short period of time. Coming into the closing stages of the race all eyes were on Petr Smitka and the battle for second as he closed the gap on the current championship point’s leader Klemen Gercar. Fortunately for Gercar, Smitka ended up getting caught up behind some lapped riders allowing Gercar to make it to the finish unchallenged. After taking on the gnarly conditions here in Maggiora it was Martin Michek who took the chequered flag ahead of the red plate holder Klemen Gercar. Taking third, in his first MX3 round this year was Peter Smitka who finished a comfortable eight seconds ahead of Christian Brockle in fourth. Rounding out the top five was the early leader and current MX3 World Champion Matthias Walkner MX3 Race one: 1. Martin Michek (CZE, KTM), 34:50.576; 2. Klemen Gercar (SLO, Honda), +0:05.574; 3. Petr Smitka (CZE, Kawasaki), +0:08.783; 4. Christian Brockel (GER, KTM), +0:16.816; 5. Matthias Walkner (AUT, KTM), +0:21.903; 6. Frantisek Smola (CZE, KTM), +0:26.163; 7. Gert Krestinov (EST, Kawasaki), +0:33.915; 8. Ludvig Söderberg (FIN, Honda), +0:54.465; 9. Petr Bartos (CZE, KTM), +0:58.812; 10. Alain Schafer (SUI, Kawasaki).