Kings work hard at the Main Event

The FIM-E Junior Dragbike Cup can often seem a relaxed affair, but the opening round at Santa Pod’s Main Event was anything but for the Next Generation team with educational requirements providing some eight hour round trips to home in the early part of the event. Team patriarch Ollie King provided the following summary:

“It was busy weekend for the team with Hollie [reigning Cup champion] sitting GCSE exams on Thursday and Friday meant multiple trips for Dad.

Test day was ok with some consistent runs for Jaxon, but Hollie’s bike was giving us issues with the gear shifts although we managed to find the issue on Friday night. Anyway qualifying into a massive headwind affected Jaxon’s bike, but Hollie started running a lot slower both in et and speed which was way too much just to be a result of the headwind wind. All Saturday night was spent pulling the bike, carbs stripped, coils, plugs, everything we could think of and a compression test was ok. Sunday morning saw no change just a very lazy revving motor, but Blade [elder brother and former Cup champion] worked his magic though through the timing tickets and said if we sit outside of the groove and let it spin off the line we will run 9.20… and it did! [this vaulted Hollie to top spot in final qualifying with a very impressive +0.0093s over a 9.20 dial].

Unfortunately, both the stiff wind and bike issues combined for both riders to lose in E1 but in a class of extremely talented bracket racers its always going to be tough in Junior Drag Bike.”

Not an ideal start to the season, but the Next Generation team have a number of domestic meetings to iron out the issues before the Junior Cup action resumes in Germany at the Hockenheimring in August.

FIM-E Junior Drag Bike Cup 2025
Remaining rounds

29th-31st August, NitrOlympX, Hockenheimring, Germany
4th-7th September, Euro Finals, Santa Pod Raceway, UK

Text and photos: Ivan Sansom & Rose Hughes