British rider Elliot Banks Browne has been fighting hard for points in 2013. Working hard to perform at the level he did in the Grand Prix of Germany in 2012, when he ran with the front runners and scored a bag full of points has not been enough to bring him the luck and results he so dearly wants. Scoring just a single point in Bulgaria last weekend and he has dropped to 21st place in the MX2 Championship points and its brought him to an all time low as far as fighting for a top ten place in the World. We caught up with Banks Browne and asked him about his assault on the FIM World MX2 Championship.
Q: Elliot, what is going on, your results are really not what you hoped for?
Banks Browne: You know I worked really hard in the winter, but the results are just not coming. We had some technical issues in Thailand and I failed to qualify for the Sunday, but it’s been a rollercoaster at most of the rounds so far. It has just been a terrible start to the season. It started like this for me last year, so hopefully we can turn it around.
Q: What about last weekend. Tell me about your GP of Bulgaria?
Banks Browne: It was a nightmare. In the qualifying race I didn’t have a good start and then I crashed. I came through but in the end we had a bike failure again. On the first race on Sunday I broke my goggles on the first lap, I tried to take them off and then I crashed again. I tried to come back but I needed to stop for new goggles and finally it was a terrible race for me, just terrible. In the second one I had a very bad start and I don’t know what happened but I was riding poorly. I got one point but in the end it was a weekend to forget. I hope that everything changes for the next round in Portugal.
Q: I know you love being in the Grand Prix series. In my opinion Youthstream have really put a big effort into the series, to improve it and take it to more countries and get more exposure. What is your opinion of the way the sport is run now?
Banks Browne: I think everything they do for the sport is really amazing, I cannot fault them on that at all, the Skybox is really nice, really awesome for television and for the sponsors. The tracks are great and I think the tracks are better this year, with the speed limit taken off them and not those silly little humps on the corners. All the tracks have good facilities and the tracks are really done well. It is looking more and more like MotoGP, more professional.
By Geoff Meyer