Patetonga - Round 2 of the NZ Motocross ChampsMost of the North Island guys who were at Timaru last Sunday, either flew out of Christchurch last Monday, or drove through it to catch the Picton Ferry. Everyone had a story to tell. We drove back into Christchurch Monday morning (the earthquake was 1:30pm Tuesday) and dropped the bikes at the Elf Depot and Mainstream Freight picked them up and they were on their way to Auckland. We had two hours to kill so we had the use of an Elf ute and did a 'Tiki Tour' of the damage from 04 September. I worked there for 18 months, very close to the Cathedral, so know it well. Little did we know that 20 hours later ...... When it struck on Tuesday the guys at the Elf depot ran outside. The high pallet racks were all falling over. The ground movement was so violent that they were thrown off their feet onto the pavement. The Elf truck that we used to take us and the bikes to Timaru and back, was bouncing off it's wheels across the car-park in a frenzied dance - hard to imagine !! None of the Elf guys were hurt but one had his home destroyed. They were lucky in a way, they are still alive. Patetonga is a good 45 minutes south of the Bombay Hills which is the boundary between Auckland and the Waikato. Getting close to Autumn but it was still shorts and t-shirts first thing and then later in the day it was full sun and very, very hot. It's a long track on a farm that the Club are in the process of buying, They would have done well out of the gate as there was plenty of spectators at $20 per head. It's an elongated 2 min 30 seconds track that has to be heavily watered as it gets dusty. A little narrow (aka one-line) in places it's a country motocross club that has a lot of enthusiastic members who put their heart and sole into the place. That's why they have a concrete start, because after the rider are gone home from the 20 odd meetings per year it's a select few that have to prep it for next time. I will talk from notes tomorrow so here are the results. The 3 Class winners were very dominant. Ethan Martens in the 125 Class, Darryll King in MX2 and Cody Cooper in MX1. UNDER 21's 125 2-stroke: 125 2-stroke: MX2:  MX1:  CHAMPIONSHIP:     |