Category: 2022

I was looking forward to Summercross this year as the junior 125 class were going to be having a go at the senior race format – Race 1 and 2 back to back with a 5 minute break between and a joker lane in Race 3. I unfortunately was caught up in a holeshot pile up in race 1 with someone else’s bike on top of mine so I had to work my way up from dead last. Then as I was making good progress I highsided after hitting a hidden braking bump. I finished the race and went back to the start for race 2 but called the day off early as I was feeling a bit banged up. It was not my best day but I got to stick around to watch racing and catch up with people.

The rain finally stopped fir the second day of Waikato Champs at North King Country. After a pretty successful first round I was looking forward to today. My starts were way off, I had to work to get through the field each time and with two laps to go in race 2 I lost my seat which was a strange issue to deal with. I stayed out and kept circulating because some points are better than a DNF. I finished 7th overall today which put me back to 4th overall for this year.

After a few years of this event not running it was cool to see it back on the moto calendar again as Pukekohe always puts on a good event. Like all race days lately it rained right before practice which made it really challenging, the clay stuck to everything and was so slippery. Once the sun came and the track started to get tacky it was much more fun. My starts were good, I loved being able to send it over #1 again and mum did a good job of being my mechanic. The showers affected different parts of the track at different times so I had to work on consistency, finding the better lines and staying on my bike. I was aiming for top 3 and while I’m annoyed that simple mistakes put me in 4th overall (3-5-4) I was happy to be out there riding.

Round 1 at Patetonga was an extreme day. Mother Nature dropped a lot of rain on the clay track and then brought the sun out and steam cooked us three times today, and it seemed to be when my class was in the dummy grid waiting to go. The club put the junior 125s and 250s on the same gate drop and it was so cool getting to battle the big bikes and having almost a full gate charging to holeshot corner. I was happy with my riding today – wet or dry – my starts were consistent, I pushed myself to keep up with the lead 250s and take different lines and use as much of the track as possible so I wouldn’t get stuck behind lappers and lose my flow. 3-2-1 today in 12-14 125 for 2nd overall which is a great start to the season.

Very excited to be racing at Moto Central for the first part of the Waikato Champs series. We got to ride the pro track and it was so much fun, the track is huge and it was really cool to have solid turn out at the races again. My starts were pretty good and even when the track started to dry out and break down I was able to stay focussed and consistent. Today showed how important team communication is – dad is in Aussie for work so between races I’d tell him about the bike set up, he’d give mum instructions about things like suspension and tyre pressure and then we’d go out and try it all again finishing up with 3-4-3 for second overall.

Every year this has been a tough event and this year was no different. The track started off really fast and smooth but by the end of the day it was lots of square edged ruts and braking bumps. I finished 7th overall in 12-14 125 which is my best result yet for MX Fest with no mechanical issues or crashes. It was nice to come away from today knowing I’d made some personal improvements.

It feels like forever since I’ve ridden at Harrisville and this track always makes me smile. Puke Club has been running events here for a really long time and this season they have been opening up parts of the older tracks and adding extra technical parts to the circuit. Today was about having fun again so we just did a couple of gate drops and some socialising.

This year Taranaki hosted the 2022 Junior MX Nationals. This place has changed heaps since the last time I raced here. The start gates have moved, and the track has been reversed so the big step downs are now massive step ups. Day one was pretty hard mentally. The track broke down really fast and there were heaps of stops to racing due to bad crashes so we spent lots of time waiting around in the hot sun. My starts were great for all the races and I pushed myself as hard as I could go but my risks did not always pay off as I had a lot of crashes, mostly in the soft corners. It was a long emotional weekend and after 14-8-12-14-8 I ended up with 12NZ in 12-14 125. I’m disappointed with my overall result and I could have/should have done so much better however with only a couple of months on the bike I was expecting a lot of myself there were a lot of positives too. The next Juniors are in April 2023 in Invercargill so lots to do in not much time.

After a decent off season – not because of injury for a change – we headed to Awakaponga for their club day. I have ridden a few times around home and Patetonga and felt very out of shape but it’s fun to be back on my bike. The 85s have all been sold so I am only on the KX112 now and we are currently going through the process of getting it set up so I feel comfortable on it.

This weekend was Battle of the Teams hosted by Taupo MX Club which is an annual fundraiser for Team NZ to get to MXON. I was invited to ride for Team Good Times under the Kawasaki NZ tent and it was a great opportunity to get a feel for my new KX112 on a gnarly track. Taupo never disappoints that way. Since it’s been raining since we returned from the US and I have been enjoying my off season, my goal for Saturday was to qualify inside the top 20 and go from there. I had fun, didn’t have any offs and learned a lot. And Team Good Times teams finished 7th in Juniors and 7th in Seniors for 5th overall out of 33 teams.