Empty, that description comes the closest to how Liam felt after two races on this brutal sand track of Lommel! Before the race a lot of eyes, if not all eyes were on him! The Belgian hope for a podium finish in the EMX250 class! The crowds expectations went only up after a great qualification where he was the fastest in Group2. Being the fastest in his group meant that Liam could pick a starting gate as second!
In the first heat Liam reacted a bit late when the gate fell. However the youngster kept the gas wide open till deep in the corner and after three corners he was already around sixth place. Sadly, still in the first lap Liam bobbled over a crashed rider, going down too. This threw the Yoko-clothed rider back to the 24th place. With still a lot of time on the clock, Liam knew what to do. He picked up the pace and took no prisoners while overtaking. One after one and sometimes two at a time, Liam fought his way through the pack. The Liamski-Lounge full of VIP’ and fans of the KTM-rider went ballistic, when with still half of the race to go, their favorite rider found his way to the tenth place. The Foodmaker rider from his side dug deep and kept pushing. While others dropped off the pace, kept Liam running quite the same lap times as at the start of the race. That helped him in still picking up a few riders and finishing in a beautiful fifth place!
The second heat started quite the same as the first one. Except this time he came through the first lap without any troubles. Being in eighth position after one lap, Liam knew he had no time to waste, if he wanted to fight for the win. Putting down some real fast laps, the 4Gold supported rider went in four laps to the fourth place. But once in fourth place, he could only notice that the first three had already a little lead. Combined with the fact that the first heat and those first four flying laps where an assault on his condition, he chose to ride smart. Liam choose a nice and still fast enough rhythm and rode without any major hick ups to a nice fourth place!
His hard fought fifth place from the first heat and the fourth place from the second heat gave the young Belgian a fifth place overall in the Belgian EMX250 Grand Prix. Liam is riding a steady season, scoring frequently top five finishes. This shows also in the championship standings where, the soon to be 17 year old is in fourth with 92 points after three Grand Prix weekends.
Upcoming weekend Liam will race the EMX250 Grand Prix of Latvia and August 15th he will be on the start gate at the mythical “Keiheuvel” race in Balen.
Pictures: Gino Maes
