Ten year-old Jonny take world title

The 10-year old Ballymacash Primary School pupil claimed the world title at the recent Junior Minimoto World Championships after a fantastic comeback at the Finestrat race track in Spain.

Known as Fast Jonny at the race track for obvious reasons, he won the nine to 13 year old aircooled class but the victory wasn’t without its problems.

Come race day, his transponder didn’t work in qualifying so he had to begin the race from the back of the grid. He had an excellent start to make up six places by turn one and by lap three he was already up to fifth place. In lap four he made his way to third place, when the race was red flagged due to an accident at turn four.

At the restart of the race he was first into turn one and didn’t look back to take the win and become the junior world champion.

He made the trip to spain in the family car, covering a total of a staggering 1200 miles to get to the track from his home in the Ballymacash estate. It took two days to get there with an 18 hour ferry crossing from Rosslare to Cherbourg and a very long road trip but it was all worth it in the end.

Jonny has been racing since he was six, when he won the Irish Junior Novice Class. At age seven, he was moved into the Junior Aircooled Class, where he finished the year in fourth overall.

Then at just nine years old, he became the youngest ever double Irish Champion, winning the Aircooled Class and the Production Class. In 2013, Jonny became double UK Masters champion. Now adding the Junior world title, it’s quite am impressive CV for a ten year old.

This year, Jonny will move from minimotos to focus on the Irish Junior Gearbox Class on his 50cc race bike.

He would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has helped get him this far in such a short racing career, including his two main sponsers Bourbon at Queens Restaurant (Belfast) and Pro Cleaner Cleaning Services (Lisburn). He also thanked Ian at I M R technical services for setting up his engine.