Soren Staudinger

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.

We are now back home after our massive adventure. It took 3 flights to get to our US start point, then we drove through 6 states (Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia and North & South Carolina) and then had to take another 3 flights to get home. We learned what we needed and didn’t need to RV from track to track, what facilities have to offer, what each AMA class involves for my age, heat, humidity, and was able to meet some of my awesome support network face to face. We went shopping, sightseeing and I got to chase some squirrels. I had a list of things I wanted to see and do – not all moto stuff – and we got through a lot of them. I’ve brought home 6 AQ trophies from the 8 classes I rode and thanks to Team Green US’s team we know how to set up my bikes even better for me now. It’s rest time now as we work out what to do next.

We spent the week after the Dalton qualifier near Chattanooga TN resting and riding and enjoying the area. I had seen footage of ProSport MX on YouTube and was looking forward to the big step up jump there. When we arrived at Wytheville VA it was very different to Lazy River as they do not track prep here, they run the dozer over the track and fill in the holes and that’s it. The jumps were big and most of the track was narrow and tight. It rained before Friday practice and it was slippery. It kept raining through the night but after riding Cambridge and Patetonga in the wet I knew what to do… twist the throttle and ride it likes it dry. I finished 2nd overall in 10-12 85, 1st overall in Mini Senior 1 on Saturday and 1st overall in 10-12 85, 1st overall 9-13 85 on Sunday with 3 holeshots. Dad got some great video of me over the step up which was one of my goals. Even in the challenging conditions I kept my head up and gave it 100%. This has been an amazing experience.

It was a long drive to get from Jacksonville FL to Dalton GA for my first go at a Lorettas area qualifier. Friday was practice and I spent a lot of time getting a feel for the track, it was nice to be on dirt after a hard week in the sand. On Saturday my starts were good and I was feeling really comfortable on the bike. The race format over here is 2 races per class and only 4 laps per race so there’s no room for mistakes. I went 31-4 in 10-12 85 Limited after banging bars with a rider battling for 4th in race 1, and 10-9 in Mini Senior 1. Not the results I wanted but made up for it on Sunday when I applied the things I learned from Saturday and went 2-2 in 10-12 85 and 7-7 in 9-13 85, competing in the modified classes on my stock bike. I found my flow in the rollers and had so much fun on and off the bike. There are so many awesome people here and so much to see. I qualified for the regionals in Mini Senior 1 and 10-12 85 this weekend and am really looking forward to working towards better results next weekend.