New Zealand’s Josh Coppins has raced to a perfect score at the fifth round of the British championship in Desert Martin (Northern Ireland). Coppins started off his faultless day by qualifying his CAS Honda in pole position before going on to win both races convincingly.

Coppins had some slight resistance in race one from current championship leader James Noble and fellow team-mate Jussi Vehvilainen, however the Kiwi was unperturbed and simply waited for his chance to get into the lead and draw first blood of the day by taking the victory.

“ Lizzard” would be untouchable in the second moto has he grabbed the hole-shot and controlled the race from start to finish.

“Desert Martin is always tough and demanding however it’s a nice track to race because there are a lot of passing lines. The track more wet than normal due to some heavy showers on Thursday. I’m looking forward to coming back here for the final GP of the season. It was quite a good day for me. I’m only 17 points off the lead. There are still three rounds to go so I’m confident I can close that up and take the championship,” commented Coppins.

(Image by Rob Grist)

Race Results:

Race 1

1, Josh Coppins , 36:05.628
2, James Noble , 36:12.643
3, Jussi Vehvilainen , 36:16.720
4, Mark Jones , 36:58.300
5, Alex Rach , 37:12.265
6, Mark Hucklebridge , 37:18.211
7, Glen Phillips , 37:38.263
8, Yoshitaka Atsuta , 37:49.995
9, Neville Bradshaw , 37:59.678
10, Martin Barr , 38:03.916
11, Paul Cooper , 36:10.426
12, Aston Bird , 36:20.775
13, Jody Smyth , 36:22.285
14, Tommy Merton , 36:24.732
15, Jamie Lewis , 36:35.779

Race 2

1, Josh Coppins , 34:59.603
2, Jussi Vehvilainen , 35:10.943
3, Yoshitaka Atsuta , 35:19.456
4, Mark Jones , 35:23.017
5, James Noble , 35:24.762
6, Paul Cooper , 35:33.700
7, Alex Rach , 36:14.529
8, Jordan Rose , 36:35.507
9, Tommy Merton , 37:03.234
10, Bryan MacKenzie , 37:18.759
11, Aston Bird , 37:27.434
12, Ben Lambert-Williams , 35:02.954
13, Glen Phillips , 35:08.015
14, Neil McKeown , 35:17.915
15, Ben Taylor , 35:29.236

Championship points standings.

1, James Noble, 251
2, Jussi Vehvilainen, 246
3, Paul Cooper, 242
4, Josh Coppins, 234
5, Yoshitaka Atsuta, 204
6, Neville Bradshaw, 153
7, Mark Jones, 138
8, Glen Phillips, 126
9, Alex Rach, 114
10, Mark Hucklebridge, 100
11, Jody Smyth, 79
12, Gordon Crockard, 78
13, Jordan Rose, 69
14, David Campbell, 53