2 Weeks Around the Tracks
GNCC - Rotorua MX - VMX - Vets & Womens Nationals
GNCC Round 1: Matata
Matata is mainly clay base with very few sections of white clay and when wet is a bit greasy. 40% pine trails ties the more open paddocks together. When wet as this was the track can degrade quickly but the rain was short lived so the impact was less.
“It was still pretty slippery,” reports Mike Sheely, who won the Expert 35+ class. “The track had a bit of all sorts with bog holes and dry patches. The novice riders were struggling in places and at times there were 6-10 riders stuck in river crossings”. “I cut through, jumped to right and was gone”, he laughs, “but I had a good splat in the last lap. I clipped something in the mud and the wheel went out underneath me. I just dived in head first, did a real face plant in the mud. I was a bit like a slippery pig. It was hard holding on after that. it takes more energy sitting on. I only had half a lap to go so I hung in. Otherwise I’d probably have stopped. But it was good fun.”
Reece Burgess finished 3rd in the Elite class behind Jason Davis and Chris Power. He too was very aware of the slick surface and had his share of less fortunate moments. “I was following Jason Davies when, on the third lap, I was caught out when a small stream of water had been redirected down the track and the perfectly good line I was in the lap before turned out to be a water filled knee deep rut that wedged the bike in. I lifted it and pushed the bike out.
Feeling a bit tired, I followed a rut down a hill that had suffered a similar fate and got jammed again. This was enough time for Chris Power to slip past. It sure drains your energy a bit. On the last lap I put in a decent effort and made up a lot of the lost ground but it was still a bit slick and a front wheel washout slowed me down. I did not want to end the ride stuck in a tree so I coasted in from that point.
All up it was an enjoyable event with only a few tricky sections. It was a bit more technical than what you would expect from many cross countries and kept you looking for traction”.
Full results are on the www.silver-bullet.co.nz website.
The November Round is in Te Puke and in December the GNCC comes to Maddix Park.
Rotorua Final Round & Prize Giving
They had fine weather for the final round and the racing was good on the track which has some parts still under development. Some results we know about: Evan Hawkless was happy with his 3rd place in the 125s just ahead of Hayden Rumble in 4th who had to ride a borrowed bike when he had problems with his own. Chris Merriman came 2nd in the 8-12 85cc on his 65cc bike. His brother Danny had 3rd and 4ths on the day in the MX2 but wasn’t riding for points. Trent Duggan, as expected, was the clear winner in the 65cc class. Results should be up on the Rotorua club website www.rmcc.org.nz
Vets & Womens Champs
For Dion Steiner, it was the day everything clicked into place. He felt good, he rode well and he won the Vets Unders 30-34 Years, or “baby vets” as the class is sometimes called, with a clean sweep of the 3 races.
Julie Managh started off well too, winning race 1, but she damaged her knee in race 2 which ended her hopes for the Vet Women’s class. Ian Conway had a good start in race 1 of the 50+ All In class but got cut off on a muddy uphill, had a few offs and a stuck throttle so retired from that race. He came 6th in race 2 but finished for the day after Julie’s injury.
Casey Waterhouse finished just in the top 10 in the Senior women’s class while Jessie Waterhouse finished 12th with the first race a DNS.
Brian Breingan came 12th in the 40-44 Vets Overs and Robby Stewart 6th in the 30-34 Overs.
The day 1 practice took place in rain and hail on a dirt track surface notorious for being hardpacked, hard and greasy, so extremely challenging when wet. The weather did dry out but came back with a vengeance that caused the cancellation of day 2. But, as Ian said, “there’s always next year”.
Full results are on www.mylaps.com
Vintage MX
Round 1 of the Mr VMX Series was held at Halcombe in the Manawatu. It rained. Racing started. Then more rain came. It did clear in the afternoon but the result was more or less a bog hole. Some local riders went down to race but didn’t. Those that did were not always successful. Peter Ploen’s bike blew after a couple of laps, Mark Stewart (pictured above) got taken out by an “out of control rider on a big 500” but it was still fun. The gloomy start to the day did not deter the 80 plus riders from having a great day slinging mud at each other. There should be results up soon on www.livewire.gen.nz . There are already some photos up.
Round 2 is in Whakatane on November 12th.
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