from ... Luke Burkhart

Over the weekend we had the first round of the New Zealand Championships in Timaru. It has been well over a year since the last series so everyone was chomping at the bit and there was a good vibe in the air. I had a brand new 2011 CMR KTM 250F sitting there looking blinged out which got me amped to get into it!

From the moment we woke up the weather was looking dodgy and it was drizzling quite bad as we headed out to the track. The track was super well prepared so the rain wasnt going to do too much damage. My bike felt really good from the get go, being brand new it was nice and fresh and felt awesome on the track. We had a thirty minute session for practice and qualifying where everybody puts in fast laptimes to determine gate pick for the day. I got into the groove really quick and felt comfortable jumping straight into 1st place on the time sheets. I managed to better my time again and stayed at the top by just under one second which was sweet for the confidence.

The first race came round and my start wasn't the best leaving me with work to do early on. I managed to get up to 3rd and was feeling ok until my bad wrist started to give me major trouble. I had to slow right down and nurse it home lightly eventually finishing a disappointing 10th, definitely still better than no points at all.

After some patch up work on my wrist i was hoping to dig it in for the second moto and things were looking good early. I got a top 5 start and worked my way past everybody into the lead by the halfway mark. I was actually pulling a lead when i overjumped a section into some ruts and punished my wrist again...... The 3 guys behind me came back past me and i tried to stay mistake free for the rest of the race and cruised to finish the race 4th.

We had one race to go before the day was over and I built up some anger before the start of the race and wanted to finish the day strong. I strapped up my wrist and grit my teeth. I pulled the holeshot and got into a good groove right from lap one. I was feeling the best i had all day and was hitting my lines perfect. As the race wore on i steadily extended my lead and rode a perfect race to get the race win to end my day. Definitely turned my day around and filled me with confidence! I had the best lap times of the day in my class and the best finish to the day so i am now pumped and looking forward to doing the business at Round 2 this weekend in Patetonga.

Huge thanks to my Team CMR Red Bull KTM crew for all their help over the weekend and also all of my other sponsors and supporters.

I will drop another update next week following the race this coming weekend.