NZ Insider No.18: MXoN Bad Luck

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. 

We have barely caught our breath after witnessing an epic Motocross of Nations event at the Zelta Zirgs circuit in Kegums, Latvia. For Team New Zealand, the primary goal coming into the prestigious annual event was to qualify in the top 20 nations for the Main Event on Sunday.

Our team consisted of Hamish Dobbyn in MX1, having recently stepped up to the 450 following the final round of the MX Nationals in Coolum last month. In MX2 was Hamish Harwood, who also switched from the two-stroke KTM 250SX he campaigned in Oz to the KTM 250SX-F, and the Open rider and Team Captain was Scott Columb, the most experienced of the group, who has now moved up to the 450 full-time, and competed in his third Motocross of Nations event.

Unfortunately, the boys came up just short in qualifying directly through, finishing 25th out of the 34 nations after Saturday’s qualifying races, which then meant they would need to race the B Final on Sunday morning and win that in order to progress into the main races.

The B Final race started alright for our boys, with Scott Columb getting the best start and running a hot pace right behind the leaders in third for a number of laps, while Hamish Harwood was sitting inside the top 10. Dobbyn did not get an ideal start, and also suffered a setback with his throttle grip coming unstuck early on which hindered his progress. With only a handful of laps left, Columb hit a shiny spot on the track just before one of the large tabletops, and fell off up the face of the tabletop.

From there, any chance of making it through the B Final was lost. Columb remounted to finish 7^th, Dobbyn 12^th, and Harwood 22^nd after also falling. It was certainly an eye-opening experience for the Kiwis, with the sheer speed and technical nature of the course, as well as the level of their competition something that had to be seen to be believed! New Zealand finished 23^rd Overall out of the 34 nations.

Domestically, we have two massive events to look forward to this coming weekend, October 4-5, with the North Island Junior Motocross Championship hosted by the North King Country Motorcycle Club at their track near Te Kuiti, as well as one of the largest and most famous off-road events on the calendar, the Suzuki Six-Hour Challenge. While we are eagerly anticipating witnessing the next wave of Junior talent in the build-up toward the summer race season, much of the focus will be on the Ohakuri Forest between Taupo and Tokoroa for the Cross Country thriller.

Favourites for the event are the defending champion Suzuki pairing of veteran, Daryl Hurley, and NZ MX1 #3, Brad Groombridge. A change for this year’s event is that the two riders do not have to share the same machine, instead able to compete on their own, with Hurley aboard his trusty RM-Z450, and Groombridge aboard the enduro-spec RM-X450. Yamaha’s multi-time National Cross Country and Enduro championship winning pairing of Adam Reeves and Chris Power who will no doubt be looking to prevent the Suzuki boys taking the win aboard their YZ450Fs, as well as young star pairing of Josh Jack (Suzuki) and Luke Mobberley (Gas Gas).