NZ Insider No.12: Junior Kiwis

Welcome to our brand new weekly web-exclusive column, Transmoto‘s NZ Insider. Penned each week by Kiwi, Chris Ritchie, the NZ Insider will present the story-behind-the-stories on NZ-related dirt bike happenings across the globe. 

This week’s NZ Insider comes to you from Lierneux in the south of Belgium, which hosted the FIM Junior World Motocross Championship over the weekend. For Team New Zealand, we had two riders who made the trip across to the other side of the world and put themselves to the test against the fastest Junior racers from around the world – almost 300 riders in total, from Madagascar to Mexico!

Our riders – KTM’s Josiah Natzke and Yamaha’s Cohen Chase – both competed in the 125cc class in the all-two-smoker event, with 65s and 85s being the other classes. Natzke is the current national 125cc champion, and one of the hottest prospects to come out of New Zealand in recent years, being the youngest-ever rider to claim the senior level national 125cc title earlier this year. Chase is also no stranger to national glory, having clinched the 14-16 year Junior 250cc title at the 2014 NZ Junior MX Nationals.

The level in Europe is something that has to be experienced for real to be fully understood, especially for our riders, as once they reach the top echelon in NZ, they have to venture overseas if they wish to progress, and to further hone their skills against tougher opposition.

For Josiah Natzke, he was fortunate enough to have his entry accepted into two rounds of the European EMX125cc Championship, held in conjunction with the MXGPs at Loket and Lommel, before competing at the Worlds. This was not only great preparation, but also an ideal gauge of speed and readiness. Natzke went out and put himself on the podium in Loket, then although he was not able to repeat his success in Lommel, he relished the opportunity.

For Cohen Chase, he spent around two weeks in Belgium leading up to the Worlds, riding tracks like Genk (where Jeffrey Herlings broke his femur recently), and Lommel, basically preparing himself for the biggest race of his career.

The weekend started off well for Natzke, who came through qualifying unscathed, put in a good lap and qualified sixth in his Group. For Chase, he missed the cut by a mere 0.600 seconds, and was forced to the LCQ. He literally rode like a ‘bat-outta-hell’ and claimed fourth in the final laps, and the final qualifying position.

The pair then went into Sunday’s final, with Natzke finishing seventh Overall (7-10), and Chase 34^th overall (32-30). While both were disappointed not to have finished further up the field, it was a massive achievement for both of them and New Zealand.

In other news, due to the recent injuries to Rhys Carter and Kayne Lamont, Motorcycling New Zealand has re-opened applications until the end of this week, Friday 15, to any riders who have not already applied, to represent Team NZ at the upcoming Motocross of Nations in Latvia, now a little over six weeks away. We will bring the team details to you once it has been confirmed!

Kayne Lamont has also now confirmed he will not be contesting either of the final two rounds of the MX Nationals, and will now concentrate on his recovery after his broken collarbone from Raymond Terrace, and aims to be back to 100% for Taupo at Labour Weekend. We wish him well on his road to recovery.