NZ Insider No.9: From Munich

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 Munich, Germany, which played host to the Red Bull X-Fighters’ penultimate stop of the 2014 World Tour, held in the Olympic Park in the north of the Bavarian city over the weekend.

As many of you who witnessed the event on TV or streamed on the internet may have seen, the course was built in the middle of the Olympic Lake on floating barge-type pontoons which were trucked in from the Netherlands, and then bolted together for the competition. The landings were then built on top of the pontoons, using scaffold structures, and a layer of dirt on top, and combined with the usual comp-spec ramps to complete the unique ‘triangled’ linear course. It really was an amazing sight, and Red Bull certainly knows how to put on an event!

Current world tour leader is our own Kiwi boy, Levi Sherwood, who started this year’s campaign with back-to-back wins in Mexico and Japan. His main rival and defending champion, Frenchman Tom Pages, faltered.

He lost his semi-final to WA’s Josh Sheehan in a tight battle, with Sheeny doing just enough to edge out Levi and progress to the final where he went on to beat Japan’s Taka Higashino. Levi finished third, retaining the tour lead by a mere five points ahead of Sheeny going into the final stop in Pretoria, South Africa in a month’s time. We were there to support Levi, and he now heads back to California (his base during the season) to prepare for the final showdown!

Back home, it was a weekend off for most with the Aussie MX Nationals on a break until the next round at Raymond Terrace in a fortnight, August 3. The local moto scene included a few club days up and down the country including Whakatane and Wanganui, with the popular Taupo club rounds held on the last Sunday during winter months coming up again next weekend, sure to attract plenty.

The latest motocross track in New Zealand was officially opened over the weekend at Mere Road, Hawkes Bay. The track has been modelled off Freestone in Texas, and is set along a river bed, among vineyards, with plans to eventually hold national championship events there. Here is some recent footage of the track, filmed with a drone!

Josiah Natzke has been busy preparing for the upcoming World Junior Champs in Belgium by riding his KTM 125SX at one of the toughest sand tracks in the world, Lommel. He will soon be joined by Yamaha’s Cohen Chase as the pair take their Kiwi challenge to the world! We will be eagerly following their progress.

There is also now only a matter of days remaining until applications close for riders to express their interest to Motorcycling New Zealand in representing New Zealand at the upcoming Motocross of Nations event in September. Check out the details here.

While some other countries select their teams, in New Zealand’s case, the governing body has put it out to anyone, and will then select the best riders from the list of applicants. We are now only two months out from the biggest global motocross event of the year!