Proppa.com KTM hits the World Championship top twenty

With a last-minute notification by Youthstream on Wednesday confirming
a sole entry for the team, Proppa.com KTM made the journey to the
famed Eurocircuit in Valkenswaard in the Netherlands on the weekend.
With Easter weekend shifting proceedings along by a day, Saturday was
spent enjoying the blazing sunshine and preparing Martin Barr's bike
for the qualifying sessions on Sunday.

Although Easter Sunday morning started early for the EMX2 and Veteran
classes, the MX1 class found itself starting its work in earnest in
the scorching afternoon for their qualifier; rider Martin Barr ended
in fifteenth place after battling with world championship veterans
Anthony Boissiere and Steve Ramon in eleventh for much of the
qualifier and only dropping back with a few laps to go.

On Easter Monday, temperatures dropped a few degrees, but the day
continued with weather normally only seen in July. The first race saw
Barr get off the start and through the first two corners in
thirteenth, finding himself in eleventh after the first lap thanks to
some aggressive manoeuvres. For the rest of the race, he held his own,
fighting off the likes of Kevin Strijbos, Marc de Reuver and Davide
Guarneri. Only with the lap board out were De Reuver and Guarneri able
to make passes, pushing Barr back to thirteenth. The second race did
not go to plan at all. Trouble brewed when the bike used in the first
race had to be substituted at the last minute. A start in twelfth soon
showed that something was wrong when Barr uncharacteristically dropped
several places each lap, rather than holding or improving his
position. With the track getting rougher every lap and his safety at
stake, he made the hard decision to pull off, earning a disappointing
thirty-third place and no points at the chequered flag.

After the results were collected, it was discovered that even with
only one race under his belt, Barr had in fact been the
highest-scoring British rider in the MX1 class, as well as the highest
non-factory KTM rider at the round. With a seventeenth overall and a
twentieth place in the overall world championship, he earned himself
praise from several riders in the championship paddock with his
consistency and his ability to keep several world championship
veterans at bay.

Even with the second race a disappointment, team principal Steve
Turner was positive in his look back over the weekend: "We had a
problem with Martin's race bike just before the start, he jumped on
the spare bike, which also had a problem pretty much after the first
lap and it was too dangerous for us to continue. It's a bit of a
shame, but we can take a lot of positives from his first race, which
was pretty awesome. He showed how good the bike is and how fast he is.
We're really happy with those points we got for being 15th; it showed
that he should be on this stage. All in all, I'm happy with the
weekend, shame we didn't double up with two good results, but we'll
learn, move forward, and live to fight another day."

Martin Barr: "I was looking forward to the weekend, this being my
first Grand Prix since 2008. In the qualifier I got a really good
start, kept fighting all the way through and ended up 15th. Race 1
this morning was really good, I had a brilliant start and just hung in
there, passed Simpson and kept pushing. I was around 11th and got a
bit tired in the last couple of laps and De Reuver and Guarneri got by
me and that put me down to 13th; it's one of my best results in a
Grand Prix. Race 2 didn't quite go to plan, I got a really good start
and was up in there. We'd switched to the spare bike and it developed
a problem. I had a few big moments when I was trying to push forward,
and it was just getting dangerous. I pulled out of that one before
anything did happen. I'm going to take all the positives away from
this weekend, I had the pace to run up there. I'm really happy to have
been the first Brit home in the first race and I wanted to do it in
the second race again, but that didn't happen. Hopefully I can get an
entry for France and do it all again."