Ben Townley Takes his First MX1 Victory at Valance, France

On a day when KTM's entire factory motocross effort turned out at Valance, France for their official 2005 photo shoot, Ben Townley gave the Austrian team something to smile about by securing his first overall MX1 victory.

With a great 2-4-1 performance in the three motos of France's cold, snowy pre-season international, the 2004 MX2 World Champion wrestled a win from Belgium's Cédric Melotte and Pascal Leuret. Melotte's 6-1-2 earned him second while third place was the home-rider, Leuret.

It was a bad day for Stefan Everts. After winning Moto1, the L&M Rinaldi Yamaha rider collided with his teammate, Melotte, during Moto2 and crashed hard. The current MX1 World Champion was furious with Melotte and eventually could not start the final race due to neck pain. A trip to the hospital revealed he had no broken bones.

Steve Ramon was not able to match the efforts of his new MX1 teammate. He started the day with 8th place after a bad jump from the gate. He then stalled his 450 SX twice, finally collecting 18th in Moto2. Despite a damaged throttle courtesy of an errant flying stone in the last race, Ramon limped home with an afternoon best of 7th.

There was little to cheer about for the Champ MX2 team as Tyla Rattray and Carl Nunn both sub-par performances. Nunn complained of arm-pump riding his 125 SX and tangled with another rider in the last moto that resulted in a broken fuel cap, and retirement for the day. South African Tyla Rattray, in his first competitive effort on KTM's 250cc four-stroke, got a bad jump out of the gate. He finished 15th in the opening Moto after crashing, and then could only take 13th in the following Moto. He had a better performance in Moto3, breaching the top six to take 8th overall.

Marc De Reuver elected not to ride at Valance and is still working his way toward a full recovery. Mickael Pichon and Joel Smets also took a sick day, each suffering from an illness that left them in no shape to ride.

Ben Townley said, "It was good to win today but it didn't really mean a great deal and we still have a lot of work to do. Mickael Pichon and [Joel] Smets were not here and Stefan was out of it, so I was expected to be at the front. I wanted to get into a rhythm today and it was not that easy in the weather conditions. During the second moto when it started to snow I backed off because it became a little scary!"

Results from Valance, France International MX

Overall Rank and Points:
1. Ben Townley 65
2. Cédric Melotte 62
3. Pascal Leuret 51
4. Julien Bill 36
5. Danny Theybers 34
6. Nemeth 33
7. Steve Ramon 30
8. Tyla Rattray 29
9. C. Pourcel 29
10. Brian Jorgensen 28