Desalle is also closing in on championship leader Ken De Dycker, while Verbruggen jumps from a tenth to a sixth in the championship standings.. Clément Desalle had been chasing Championship leader Ken De Dycker for almost a full first heat.

With only two laps to go, it seemed that De Dycker would take another heat win in the Belgian championship. Desalle made a mistake but the 20 year old would turn the situation completely. In no time he came back, trailing in De Dycker’s wake.

At the beginning of the very last lap the LS Motors Honda rider launched his attack. De Dycker would react prompt and professional, but to no avail as Desalle took the lead a few hundred metres further.

Dennis Verbruggen came back from seventh to fourth but would be overtaken by Josh Coppins in the last lap. The LS Motors Honda duo would dominate the opening stages of the second heat. Desalle would break away from De Dycker and would build his lead lap after lap.

Meanwhile Verbruggen was hanging on in third. Being a bit to generous with the power of his CRF450R caused him to lose that position to Josh Coppins. Verbruggen ended up fourth in front of Ramon and Priem.

In the decisive third heat Desalle would get rid of holeshot winners Van Daele and Priem. With De Dycker just metres behind Desalle it looked like this would pan out as an absolute thriller. However, a small collision between both top Belgians meant De Dycker would lose valuable time.

This enabled “MX Panda” to increase his lead and take his third heat win of the day. Dennis Verbruggen had his weakest start of the day and wouldn’t find the speed of his previous heats. This meant he lost every chance to be on the podium, although he would end the heat in sixth.

Clément Desalle comments

"Today turned out to be really positive. Just like last year I won the overall in Nismes. My wins in heat two and three were fairly easy. In the first heat I crashed after I had been pressuring De Dycker. Luckily, I was able to come back and win. It was good to race this close to home, a lot of fans and friends showed up to support me. That makes it extra nice to win this race. Given the points standings I’m already looking forward to the Keiheuvel track.”

Dennis Verbruggen comments

“My first race on the CRF450R was definitely a confidence booster, although I had very few practice on the MX1 bike. Today, I felt good on it right away and I really enjoyed myself. Despite that the last heat was a bit of a bummer. I really felt that I could do better. I will do the rest of the Belgian Championship on my CRF450R. Mainly because it just increases my chances in the Open class, but also because I want to gain some experience before I could switch to MX1 full time in 2010.”

RESULTS

HEAT 1: 1 Clément Desalle (B-LS Motors-Honda), 2 Ken De Dycker (B-Suzuki), 3 Steve Ramon (B-Suzuki), 4 Josh Coppins (NZYamaha), 5 Dennis Verbruggen (B-LS Motors Honda), 6 Patrick Caps (B-Suzuki), 7 Marvin Van Daele (B-Honda), 8 Vincent Collet (BYamaha), 9 Steve Seronval (B-Honda), 10 Kristof Salaets (B-Honda)

Heat 2: 1 Clément Desalle (B-LS Motors Honda), 2 Ken De Dycker (B-Suzuki), 3 Josh Coppins (NZ-Yamaha), 4 Dennis Verbruggen (B-LS Motors Honda) 5 Steve Ramon (B-Suzuki), 6 Manuel Priem (B-Aprilia), 7 Patrick Caps (B-Suzuki), 8 Marvin Van Daele (B-Honda), 9 Steve Seronval (B-Honda), 10 Jurgen Van Nooten (B-KTM)

Heat 3: 1 Clément Desalle (B-LS Motors Honda), 2 Steve Ramon (B-Suzuki), 3 Ken De Dycker (B-Suzuki), 4 Manuel Priem (B-Aprilia), 5 Josh Coppins (NZ-Yamaha), 6 Dennis Verbruggen (B-LS Motors Honda) 7 Marvin Van Daele (B-Honda), 8 Patrick Caps (B-Suzuki), 9 Steve Seronval (B-Honda), 10 Kristof Salaets (B-Honda)

‘Nismes’ Overall 1 Clément Desalle (B-LS Motors Honda) 75, 2 De Dycker 64, 3 Ramon 58, 4 Coppins 54, 5 Dennis Verbruggen (B-LS Motors Honda) 49, 6 Caps 42, 7 Van Daele 41, 8 Seronval 36, 9 Priem 33, 10 Van Nooten 30

Belgian MX Championship standings after three races 1 De Dycker 204, 2 Clément Desalle (B-LS Motors Honda) 202, 3 Coppins 160, 4 Van Daele 119, 5 Caps 109, 6 Verbruggen (B-LS Motors Honda), 95, 7 Roelants 76, 8 Philippaerts 64, 9 Ramon 58, 10 Priem 58