Look out America, here comes Courtney Duncan
Ponca
City is the precursor to Loretta Lynns which is the annual AMA Amateur National
Motocross Championships. The legendary Loretta Lynn Ranch is in scenic
Hurricane Mills, Tennessee and this year’s takes place on 1-6 August. Courtney’s Motocross prowess is well known on both sides of the Tasman. She has been winning over the boys for some time.Coming from the deep south of New Zealand we don’t see a lot of her in the upper North Island. One of the early highlights for me was in March 2009 at the Auckland MX Champs, held in very wet conditions at the Pukekohe MCC’s demanding Harrisville track. She lapped the entire field in the Junior 13-16 years 85cc class on her Yamaha YZ85 and then won the Women’s Open the next day by a huge margin as well. In August 2009 at the FIM Junior Worlds at Taupo she emerged with a world ranking of No.6 in the 85cc Class. Not that there is anything wrong with that but we all knew she could have done better but it was simply a case of ‘would have, could have, should have.’ She ran as high as 2nd in some races and then had a very bad in the last race. Again at the 2010 Auckland Champs she ran 2-2-3 against the boys and then in the Oceania Championship (NZ versus Australia) the next day she went 2-3. In October 2010 she won the Australian girls' 12-16 years' 85cc/150cc title. She won the first four races but crashed in the first lap of the final race which dropped her to the very last place. Within two laps she had re-claimed the lead and started to lap riders before making it a five race clean-sweep. Courtney had won the Australian 85cc Championship with her main rival 17 points behind. Courtney also rode in the Australian 12-14 years' 85cc, up against some of the same boys from the Oceania and World Champs. She missed the top of the podium by just 3 points with 3-8-1 results. In the second race she was leading into a rocky section and the bike spun out and she dropped it. That put her back to 10th place. She fought back to 3rd, was blocked by another rider, collided and went down again. She finished 8th. Next highlight for me was at Whakatane’s Summercross between Christmas and New Year 2010. On the first day, up against the best of the boys she won all three races by 39, 22 and 30 seconds. The next day she rode in the Open Women’s and blitzed them by 32, 32 and 10 seconds. Second overall was Nikki Scott who herself was good enough to to have ridden in the previous FIM Women’s World Championship for DIGA Racing. Nikki had led the last race for three laps but once Courtney got past she put 10 seconds between them. Courtney has also won at the Woodville Motocross GP and at the National TT Championships at Kuratau but the pinnacle of the 15-year-old’s motocross career was at Easter this year. At the NZ Junior Nationals at Tokoroa she won the 13-16 years 85cc National Motocross Championship title in the 85cc class – the first time ever by a young women. She won four out of five races at the three-day event. In the fourth race she crashed whilst leading – the track had just been watered. She got going again and was up to second when she crashed again. She was gaining on the leader but ran out of laps and had to settle for second. Annoyed with herslf she went out and won the final race by a staggering 32 seconds. The New Zealand motocross fraternity wishes Courtney ‘good luck’ at Ponca City. She knows that it’s another step up. She says she has watched the event on videos and because it gets really rough, it suits her. Courtney is sponsored: Yamaha NZ, GMD, Backflips, Sportspro (Fox and Scott),Yamalube, Arai, Suspension Tech and Otago Transport. Photos courtey of Courtney Duncan. |
