Josh Coppins has powered his CAS Honda to victory in his return to the British championship series by dominating both heats in Desert Martin over the weekend.

The friendly Kiwi regarded the day as perfect training for the GP that will take place at the same venue on the 27-28 August.

Coppins grabbed a hole-shot in Moto 1 and mastered the Porters Pit circuit by leading from start to finish without any challenge from the rest of the pack.

The second moto started off as a crowd thriller as team-mate Ken De Dycker got out front with Coppins hot on his heels. The two CAS Honda riders left the rest of the field trailing in their dust and with ten minutes still left on the clock, Coppins made his move on the Belgian and pulled a sizeable lead to take the chequered flag by 21 seconds, claiming overall honours for the day.

“The track had a very similar layout to last years GP but was a little bit longer. It got extremely rough as the day went on, especially the second moto but that’s exactly what I need to get back into the racing rhythm. There was also a new concrete start which was quite tricky. We had perfect weather conditions which made for a perfect day!” smiled Coppins.

“Lizzard” heads to Uddevalla in Sweden next weekend for the 9th round of the FIM MX world champs. The picturesque circuit, one hour north of Gothenburg, marks the site where Coppins dominated both moto’s last year, and was flanked by fellow Kiwi, Ben Townley, on the podium. To round off the historic weekend for New Zealand Motorsport, Woman’s champ, Katherine Prumm made it all Kiwi affair by achieving second spot in the first ever Woman’s World Cup.

Race results:

MX1 Race 1

1 Josh Coppins

2 Ken De Dycker

3 Mark Jones

4 Julien Bill

5 James Noble

6 Gordon Crockard

7 Neville Bradshaw

8 Martin Barr

9 Bryan MacKenzie

10 Mark Hucklebridge

11 Mark Eastwood

12 Glen Phillips

13 Jody Smyth

14 Danny Smyth

15 Ben Lambert-Williams

MX1 Race 2

1 Josh Coppins

2 Ken De Dycker

3 James Noble

4 Gordon Crockard

5 Mark Jones

6 Julien Bill

7 Neville Bradshaw

8 Bryan MacKenzie

9 Mark Eastwood

10 Jason Higgs

11 Martin Barr

12 Danny Smyth

13 Jody Smyth

14 Aston Bird

15 Ben Lambert-Williams

British Championship standings:

1 Ken De Dijker 285

2 James Noble 244

3 Mark Jones 204

4 Gordon Crockard 179

5 Stephen Sword 158

6 Neville Bradshaw 139

7 Josh Coppins 117

8 Martin Barr 115

9 Julien Bill 108

10 Mark Hucklebridge 105

11 Mark Eastwood 88

12 Danny Smyth 87

13 Alex Rach 86

14 Jordan Rose 82

15 Jody Smyth 75