Wednesday #1
Wednesday 23 January: Amazing the amount of people who still say they miss the weekly email. It took too long to lay-up the HTML format and quicker to do as per below. As I still get the same tips, gossip, half-truths and lies, by Wednesdays I have it sorted!
2013 Honda
Woodville GP this weekend.
Confirmed entries
can be found at:
http://www.momcc.co.nz/index.php?pag=nw&id=230&p=confirmed-entries-woodville-2013.html
Good
to see 4 Internationals. In MX1
– KTM has Australians Todd Waters (ex factory Suzuki) and Kirk Gibbs.
In MX2
Brit Jake Nichols, who was #4 in Europe is here staying / training with Ben
Townley.
Kawasaki NZ has are helping out 3 times Australia
Junior 250 rider Jesse Dobson who will also ride MX2 at Woodville.
He was supposed to be at Harrisville on
Sunday but a motorway pile-up near Brisbane caused them to miss their flight
over.
It will be the second appearance of Peter Broxholme's (aka Broxy) new team with Keiren Scheele on Hondas supported by Botany Honda, Castrol and JT Racing gear.
Only 8 entries in the River Race headed
by Paul Whibley who will then return to the USA with his wife Katherine for GNCC 2013.
In December I wrote that Joel Doeksen (http://www.moto-media.net/?id=2199) is riding for Maddii Racing this year. The team is based near Florence, Italy
and Joel is training with them in preparation for the Italian Champs.
His KTM team-mates are Marco Maddii (son
of the infamous Corrado Maddii) and Mattia Buso, both whom Joel rode against in
MX3 in 2011.
In 1982 the World 125cc Championship was won by Eric Geboers, 2nd
was Corrado Maddii and 3rd was Michele Rinaldi. Maddii was 2nd in 1984 and 3rd in 1985. The Italians still adore him.
Dates for the 2013 MX International Italian
Championship.
03 February at Riola Sardo
10 February at Malagrotta (Rome)
17 February at Trento
Kevin Windham has retired after
a 17-year career competing at Monster Energy AMA Supercross. K-Dub decided to hang up his boots Saturday
night at Angel Stadium's Anaheim II. A true legend in the sport, he
tallies up 207 starts and earned 18 Main Event wins, 75 podium finishes
and went 14 seasons with a podium finish. With a career average finish
of 5.8, Windham is third on the all-time consecutive start list with
100.
Images and stats courtesy of supercross.com
2013 Dakar is over. I avoided the daily reports as I got about 8 daily. Congratulations to Cyril Despres. Five fingers, five Dakar titles!
124
motorcycle riders, 26 quad drivers, 89 car crews and 60 as crews paraded
on the podium set up opposite Santiago's Palacio de la Moneda to
celebrate their arrival in the Chilean capital. With
14 days of racing and over 8000 km under their belts, 67% (299/449)
of the vehicles on the start list in Lima made it to the finish. In
the hand, it was the defending champions who survived all the
unexpected turns of events to dominate the race, with Cyril Despres
making it five in the motorcycle category and Stéphane Peterhansel
taking his fifth victory in a MINI. Marcos Patronelli won for the second time in the quad category, on the back of his brother Alejandro's triumph last year. Only one of the champions is a first-time winner: Eduard Nikolaev, Who Took the truck title.
KX Australia’s Cody Mackie 'just might' come over and be do the NZ
MX Nationals. They start at Timaru in less than 3 weeks – scary?
Blake Gillard is 25 this Friday. His employers TMG Yamaha in Takanini
are shutting down at the end of this month and Blake has already gone back to
his old Postie job. Blake is currently off the bike as his Scaphoid that was operated on gave him grief at the Elf Auckland Champs and he has been given another stand-down period by the Surgeon, so was going to miss the Nationals anyway.
KTM
Australia has thrown its support behind Australian Junior Motocross Championship, signing on as the official naming rights sponsor
for the 2013 KTM Australian Junior Motocross Championship (AJMX). The 2013 event
will be in the Victorian town of Horsham from 28 September – 5 October and hosted
by the Horsham Motorcycle Club.
Talking KTM.
I’m told KTM here in NZ sold as many 105 kits as they have sold KX85s !!!! Only got to listen to some of them.
Luke Burkhart is back riding - on a Honda.
Jesse Donnelly has gone Kawasaki after a longtime on yellow.
Broc Martens (Ethan’s younger brother) had a rough
weekend in and out of hospital – more like, waiting to be seen to, actually. When he got his internal injuries a couple
of years ago his bowel was split and it’s been ‘playing
up’.
Hamish Dobbyn is one of the most naturally talented
motocrossers NZ has produced but where is he now?
In 2009, Sunday the 16th of
August to be exact, he put on a stunning performance and came home 3rd in the FIM
Junior Worlds in Taupo. Plagued by a knee injury he took a break after
surgery. In his comeback at the
Senior MX Nationals last year he was up there with the very best and who could
forget him taking out Ben Townley in the holeshot corner at the Harrisville’s
Round 3 of the Nationals.
More
injury problems so he has finished his carpentry apprenticeship with his dad
Grant. Hamish and girlfriend/partner Heather have been in the USA since
departing last August for South America and worked their way north - they are currently in New York.
Pukekohe MX Club Day last Sunday and about 100 riders
turned out plus 55 on the Mini track.
Misty rain and wet track but by the third round the sun was out, the wind up and there was lots of dust
despite 7 hours of water.
This is the new drop-off as riders turn left after the container jump to approach the big step-up. Feedback from the riders was that they loved the corner as they could rail the berms.
This is the new drop-off as you come around the 'arena' after the step-up. Much steeper than it looks here.
Highlight of the day was witnessing Steven Cunha, as the
lead rider, go down at the bottom of #8 with all the 85 class piled up behind
him. This was the last practice and not all his fault but the way
they piles up and waited for him to remount was very funny to watch. Bottom of #8 is hidden to most
eyes up on the hill but I just happened to be there.
Lowlight of the day was for Joel Trappitt on his new
Husqvarna 125 when it seized over #10.
Lucky for him he landed safely but the Husky only had 3 hours on it. To
those who know (not me!) lots of black smoke out the exhaust would suggest a
bottom end. Closer inspection
revealed a 5 cent sized hole in the top of the cylinder head???
24 Junior 125cc riders and only 1 x 250 4-stroke –
sign of the times?
Good to see local lad Ethan Watkins staying with the very
talented Josiah Natzke from the Waikato.
All the 85s ran together as well as the 65s in the
last race. National 65 Champ
Brodie Connelly (pictured here #88) has gone up to an 85.
He’s only a little bloke and start blocks are at least 200mm high. Little he might be but he is super fast
and gave much older boys more than a ‘run for their money’.
Nigel Gainsford was back in the Vets after 4 months
off the bike.
Yamaha Factory Racing 'cone' pipe on Tony Cooksley’s new
YZ250 – first of his Euro parts to arrive.
Hard to find the results of the 4 hour
Raglan Rocx but I hear it was won by KX mounted
Mike Cotter and Kieran Leigh.
2013 New Zealand Cross Country Championship.
17 February 2013 - Southland
16 March 2013 - Taranaki
21 April 2013 - Christchurch
18 May 2013 - Hawkes Bay
As previously reported the
2013 Yamaha New Zealand Enduro Championship dates have gone out to 8 rounds:
Round 1 2nd February at Oparau
Round 2 23rd February at Whangamata
Round 3 24th March at Riverhead
Round 4 27th April at Wellington
Round 5 11th May at Waimiha
Round 6 1st June at Maramarua
Round 7 20th July at Taupo
Round 8 21st September at Tokoroa
If you have any info email me on
alan@h-hmedia.com
