Easton win heralds a hot new generation of bikers
Marriage and fatherhood have not slowed down Stuart Easton one bit. Twelve months after winning his first Macau Motorcycle Grand Prix, Easton made it two, as he held off Conor Cummins to win the 43rd edition in style yesterday.
The victory heralded a new generation of riders. Move over, Michael Rutter and John McGuinness, the duo making way for Easton and company, who grabbed all the headlines this week with their domination which ended in victory.
'Yes, it would be great to be up there with Rutter and [Ron] Haslam, who have won this race six times,' a delighted Easton said. 'I have got two now and if I can make it a treble next year, I'm halfway there already.'
Scot Easton, 26, riding a Hydrex IGT Honda 1000, was only briefly threatened in his ride to glory when in the penultimate lap of the 15-lap race, Isle of Man's Cummins, on a Kawasaki, stole the lead.
'One of my tyres went off a bit and I really struggled over the last six laps. It got worse and worse and with about two laps to go, Conor grabbed the lead. But I knew my bike had good speed and I still believed I could win one way or another,' Easton said.
Superbly weaving his way past riders who had been lapped, Easton retook the lead midway through the last lap to claim a famous victory over Cummins by a mere 0.381 seconds.
'It's nice to win again. Macau is a working holiday. But it is quite dangerous out there and sometimes you think 'why am I doing this?' and the pressure was on me to deliver,' said Easton, who became a father nine weeks ago.
Britons Ian Hutchinson and Gary Johnson were placed third and fourth while Germany's Rico Penzkofer came fifth. Sentimental favourite Rutter's bid to claim a record seventh title was stymied by a poor bike, which had fuelling problems, and he finished in sixth place.
The days when Macau champions Rutter and McGuinness - who failed to finish - duelled on the Guia circuit seemed a distant memory.
'The podium is the new generation,' Easton proclaimed after being doused with champagne. 'We are all in our 20s and I think this is the start of a new rivalry.'
The race got off to a false start when the riders were called back to the pit after a few made an early break before being flagged off.
Easton made a super start the second time around and seemed to turn it into a one-way procession, setting a new race lap record of two minutes 25.170 seconds in the process.
He was cruising until the last-minute drama of seeing the lanky figure of Cummins overtake him.
'I just kept chipping away at his lead and the gap was quite sizeable at one stage,' Cummins said.
'I managed to get the lead at the second to last turn on the penultimate lap but I couldn't hold on to it. But I'm still happy to finish second.'
