ROUND 4 – REGIONAL MOTOCROSS CHAMPIONSHIP – CAPRICORN MX, POLOKWANE 22/05/2010 There was some frantic preparation to both man and machine for the fourth round of the regional motocross championships held at the Capricorn raceway in Polokwane over the weekend. Our young MX1 rider Johann Vermaak had to replace bearings on his KTM 450 SXF after they failed during the week,  and both Ian and Levi had injury problems. Our veteran Ian Topliss had a niggling wrist sprain and our MX2 rider Levi Doherty had pain in his coccyx. Nevertheless, armed with our race prepped KTM machines and a host of pain killers and anti-inflammatories we were going to give it our best shot. In the MX2 class we had the usual host of 250 two-stroke machines to contend with and they occupied six of the top seven places by the end of the day. Levi rode well under the circumstances, especially in the second heat,  even though he was’nt actually able to sit down on the seat. He managed 10th overall for the day, securing his second top ten finish in the championship so far. By early Sunday morning the pain was too much to bear and he was checked into hospital where he went into theatre and had a piladinal abscess removed from the base of his spine. He should be out by Tuesday but will unfortunately miss the Queenstown national. The doctors say he should be able to ride again in 3-4 weeks. During MX1 practice Johann’s bike kept stalling. We tried to check all the possible causes and got the bike to start again but the problem was intermittent. So not to take any risks and possibly lose championship points, Johann rode Levi’s 250 SXF in both heats and came a very credible 7th overall for the day. Ian also battled it out with SA’s fastest in MX1 and the medications seem to have worked, because he rode two clean heats to finish 3rd overall for the day. It’s off to Queenstown this weekend for the next national minus our MX2 rider, but we hope to bring back a class win again.