SUNDAY'S meeting at Wakes Colne, in Essex, organised by the Halstead club, was abandoned after eight of the 13 races were run, when junior championship leader, Matt French, was injured in a spectacular crash.

SUNDAY'S meeting at Wakes Colne, in Essex, organised by the Halstead club, was abandoned after eight of the 13 races were run, when junior championship leader, Matt French, was injured in a spectacular crash. The course paramedic had to accompany the Sudbury rider to hospital leaving the organisers no choice but to stop racing.

Earlier, the air ambulance had to airlift Sam Arbon to hospital, after he had crashed on the first corner in his MX2 junior race. Thankfully, the youngster was allowed home after treatment.

Earlier on, it promised to be a good event, with a big entry for round five of the Eastern Championships, and the circuit well prepared.

The two Expert Championship races unfortunately did not take place, as the incident happened before they were due to start.

In the morning's non-championship race for expert graded riders, it was Jak Terry who led for most of the race, before current champion Syd Bales, riding for his new GH moto-cross team, took over to win.

Leg one of the Junior MX2 Championships saw an excellent win for Daniel Arnold. The 16-year-old from Kent looked very impressive, and won by over 18 seconds. Perry Callow took second place, from veteran Richard Thrower, after Ben Talbot crashed, and had to fight back to claim fourth place from Neil Jago.

The only other championship race was leg one of the junior MX1 series. It was stopped when French crashed after 12 minutes had gone, so results were calculated by finishing order of the previous lap. Nick Markwell led at the start, but a mistake by him, handed the lead to Chris Place, who took the win from David Lockwood and Ipswich rider, Barry Farrow.

The final round of the Eastern Championships is on October 14, at Lyng, in Norfolk.

Results round-up

Junior MX2: 1 Daniel Arnold (Yamaha), 2 Perry Callow (KTM), 3 Richard Thrower (Honda), 4 Ben Talbot (Honda), 5 Neil Jago (Suzuki), 6 Stuart Dyerson (Kawasaki).

Junior MX1: 1 Chris Place (Honda), 2 David Lockwood (Honda), 3 Barry Farrow (Yamaha), 4 Vince Snell (Yamaha), 5 Lee Keyton (Yamaha), 6 Paul Taylor (Honda).

Expert Non-Championship Race: 1 Syd Bales (Yamaha), 2 Jak Terry (Honda), 3 Matt White (Honda), 4 Luke Benstead (Suzuki), 5 Jason Morland (KTM), 6 Clint Wright (Honda).