Buildbase CCM and Phoenix Tools CCM finished the year on a high

Tom Church on the Buildbase factory CCM came out on top as the highest British MX1 finisher in the Brazilian GP in Canelinha. A difficult build up to the main GP racing on Sunday meant no one could practice on the water logged track but finally the weather relented and allowed for some excellent racing on the Sunday.

Tom Church on the Buildbase CCM gated top ten with one of Tom Church’s customary outside sweeps around the first turn. Tom held a comfortable 9th for much of the race right behind Cairoli, Ramon and Leok but at two thirds distance started to suffer from arm pump as did much of the field. Tom Church started to slip down the leader board and out of a potentially safe top 10 finish. Church finished on the same 20 laps as the winner but dropped to 12th place one ahead of his team mate Dougan.

Jason Dougan meanwhile had a hard race through from a low top 20 position on the first lap but battled well on the Phoenix Tools CCM picking off the likes of De Reuver and Bill. The Phoenix Tools CCM Dougan was the only other rider in the field to finish on the same lap as the winner Desalle and earn himself a well deserved 13th place by the flag.

For the second moto Tom Church on the Buildbase CCM again started well on his familiar outside gate and finished lap 1 in 11th. On lap two Tom Church made a mistake and dropped to 14th, by half way distance Church was dicing with MX1 Championship winner Caroili and the two circulated round for the second half of the race for Tom Church to finish 13th in the race and 13th on the day.

That maintained the Buildbase CCM factory rider finishing in the top 15 of the World Championship, his best overall Championship finish for his entire riding career. A truly outstanding finish for the CCM factory in their first GP season for over 29 years to have 2 GP riders finish in the top 20. Managing Director Gary Harthern commented: “I think we’ve achieved a lot of respect and credibility within the racing paddock, nobody expected us to have such a strong performance in our first year of GP racing. When you take into account established UK based teams like CAS, Dixon Yamaha, MVRD & KTM UK, the Buildbase CCM & Phoenix Tools CCM team has produced the best team result of all the British teams especially with Tom Church on the Buildbase CCM finishing the highest British rider overall in both the MX1 and MX2 class. We’re going to build on that for next year with a stronger GP team line-up and a UK only race team that will support the GP team at certain times throughout the year. We’re really looking forward to 2010 as that’s when our production bike will appear.”

The Buildbase & Phoenix Tools CCM teamsters along with Ray Rowson whose finally getting back on form after his 2nd place at the last Maxxis round head off for the season finale at the last round of the British Championship hoping to secure that final objective of winning a British Championship race in 2009.