Heading back to Harrisville

The Pukekohe Motorcycle Club has the luxury of two tracks, Mercer Sand Track which it runs in winter.  

Harrisville which is it’s summer home. Photo - clmintiepic

Harrisville underwent dramatic changes before Round 3 of the 2012 New Zealand Motocross Nationals in early March this year. 

Greg Atkins, Circuit Manager for Youthstream. Photo - Youthstream

Greg manages all the FIM MX events, was here on holiday (he hails from Tokoroa)  I digress, Greg actually went to school with Dirtbike Gym's Rex Michau. Greg was ‘coerced’ by Tony Cooksley to lend a hand in reconfiguring Harrisville’s supercross section.   The Club’s Committee set a budget and a large excavator was brought in from Porter Hire. It actually turned into a sponsorship ‘deal’ from the Porter Group.  The Club's own bulldozer was deemed 'not big enough' so a larger version was hired.  Greg could not help himself and ended up two days on the machinery aided by a team of other drivers.  

The rest is history and much praise was lauded on the changes by the likes of our MX internationals, Josh Coppins, Ben Townley and Cody Cooper.

Whilst Mercer is the winter track Harrisville is still open from 1-3pm on the second and fourth Saturdays of the month - weather permitting.  The predominantly clay track doesn’t absorb a lot of rain, it muddies up horribly and the riders stay away.

Summers coming and so are the two day Elf Auckland Champs (16-17 November) so time to get Harrisville back up to a high standard.  In comes club member Scott Willis on his 12 tonne digger and the #5 'staircase' step-up receives attention. Then a lot of time is spent on the set of rollers between jumps #5 and #7.  

The rollers are re-shaped and new drains added.  Since the Nationals the track had worn on the inside meaning water could not get away, so that has been permanently sorted. Close study of the aerial pic above shows the water lying between the rollers. This photo does not really capture the contours.  

The drop-off at #9 has also been reshaped with much attention to drainage. 

The right hander heading up to #10 now has a battered bank although at last Saturday’s practice, riders opted to take the shorter route.

Next change was the ‘annoying’  little double as you come around the back of the start gates and head onto Champion Straight – the straight lined with the Pine Trees.   It’s now a very nice ski jump that pops you up onto that straight.

The biggest problem with the ‘back’ section of the track is the gully the track traverses three times.  It’s always wet down there so the entire gully from up near the Mini Track to the bottom has been cleared and at the top a 250mm pipe drains the water away. On the right you can see the bottom of #1 has been reformed. 

That solves the bottom of #1 but the track criss-crosses twice again. At the bottom of #1.5 lesser diameter pipes have been laid. The next section to receive attention will be the set of tabletops and doubles behind the starting gates.

Now back to Mercer. The Club has it’s last Club Day at Mercer this Sunday 16 September and there will be a Practice Day there on Saturday the 6th of October - if it gets to dusty it will be back to Harrisville.

Because the Elf Auckland Motocross Champs are on 17-18 November there’s a real need to have a Club Day at Harrisville beforehand. However the third Sunday of the month falls on Labour Weekend and that’s the domain of the Taupo Club, with their annual Extravaganza.   The October Club Day will now move to the following Sunday, the 28th.

Aerial photo - http://clmintiepix.photoshelter.com/ Phil Smith for the PukeMX 

Greg Atkins photo - Youthstream 

Other photos - Alan Henderson www.moto-media.net