Statistics, like photos, don't lie

Friday 22 November: Tony Cooksley remarked that at the Auckland Champs MX2 riders Scott Columb and Hamish Dobbyn in particular, appeared to be going quicker than he remembered MX2 at Round 3 of the Nationals - which was the identical track.

It was hard to compare 'apples with apples'. However we can compare lap times

and Tony doesn't miss much and he was right - up 4-5 seconds faster in the races.

Scott Columb - Round 3 NZ MX Champs - 10 March 2013:

Practice     2:34.657                                  Fastest was Brock Winstone 2:33.912
Race 1      2:31.520 4th place                  Fastest was Darryll King    2:30.238
Race 2      2:30.913 6th place                  Fastest was Ethan Martens 2:29.791
Race 3      2:29.651 4th place                  Fastest was Scott Columb 2:29.651

Overall: 1st Ryan Marmont. 2nd Darryll King. 3rd Ethan Martens. 4th Rhys Carter. 5th Brock Winstone. 6th Scott Columb

Scott Columb - Auckland MX Champs - 17 November 2013

Practice     2:36.288                                  Fastest was Hamish Dobbyn 2:32.518
Race 1      2:26.373 2nd place                 Fastest was Hamish Dobbyn 2:26.096
Race 2      2:24.158 1st place                  Fastest was Scott Columb      2:24.158
Race 3      2:27.292 4th place                  Fastest was Hamish Dobbyn 2:25.401

Overall: 1st Hamish Dobbyn. 2nd Darryl King. 3rd Scott Columb. 4th Nick Saunders. 5th Hayden Kanters. 6th Scott Canham.

I'm not being unkind to DK but if it wasn't for the Race 3 start incident he would have/could have been 3rd. Racing's racing and whilst Hamish's fastest lap in R3 was almost 2 secs faster than Scott's (injured leg?) on a clear playing field there is little between them and remember they are both on the come-back. In no particular order Rhys Carter, Kayne Lamont, Darryll King, John Phillips, Hamish Harwood and whichever Aussies are coming are certainly going to have to lift their game come the Nationals.

As Tony says, "Hamish has always been fast. Remember the 2009 Junior MX World Champs. He left Yamaha two weeks beforehand to ride for Kawasaki and on an unfamiliar bike he was 3rd. Who won that? Oh, Eli Tomac and where is he now?"

Their laptimes were:

Race 1 Tomac 2:10.371 and Dobbyn 2:11.584
Race 2 Tomac 2:13.448 and Dobbyn 2:15.460

Did the same apply to MX1 as Brad Groombridge and Ethan Martens as both certainly cleared out. Again we are not comparing apples with apples but ... you get my drift?

NZ MX Round 3 -10 March                                    Auckland MX Champs - 17 November

Race 1 Cody Cooper      2:23.997                          Brad Groombridge   2:24.303
             Todd Waters        2:24.697                         Ethan Martens          2:24.977
              Billy Mackenzie 2:25.952

Race 2 Cody Cooper      2:24.812                          Brad Groombridge   2:25.771
             Billy Mackenzie   2:26.132                          Ethan Martens         2:26.105
             Kirk Gibbs           2:27.288

Race 3 Billy Mackenzie 2:26.418                          Brad Groombridge    2:26.939
             Cody Cooper      2:26.786                          Ethan Martens           2:26.990
             Todd Waters       2:27.091