from ... Peter Broxholme

Botany Honda had blessed me with the use of race bike used for this years nationals, a very capable CRF250R that I was most at home on, especially with a new Hinson clutch installed for the meet.

Right from the start of the days riding there were heated battles, beginning with who would get the clear track for practice. It has always been a joke for someone to win the warm up but I was pretty stoked to oust a charging Jonothan Martelli for the green flag then manage the fastest lap over Suzuki's Rhys Carter by a couple of hundredths. All I know is if I muck around early on it is hard to get out of that funk!

Rhys and I continued to swap places during the day, starting with qualifying which he won by one second. We were a fair distance ahead of my fellow Honda riders Jamie Ainsworth and Jessie Wiki but as always it was the start that was going to be the clincher!

With a decent jump off the gates of the MX2 versus Vets race I then snuck the inside line to come out in third. The Bay of Plenty clubs Veteran rider Darren Capill laid a solid early charge to hold me out for half a lap before I could aim to clear off out front.

Darren was someone I had looked up when I first got into racing (he gave us the thumbs up one time while driving to the track, yes ,I felt special) so it was good to see him still ripping. Rhys must have been held up as I suddenly I had a huge lead so concentrated on the solid laps, just doing enough to hold him off in the end. It felt great to win again but was a bit close to warrant any celebrating, especially as our best lap times were identical down to the thousandth of a second - both getting exactly a 2:02.728 - check out http://www.mylaps.com/ results/showrun.jsp?id=1895422 if you don't believe it!

The big final saw us up against the MX1 class which would have started well had a friend of mine not gotten a bit excited and tipped a big bunch of us over in the first corner.

#3's quote: "had a friend of mine not gotten a bit excited and tipped a big bunch of us over in the first corner."  Watch the progress!!  Images - Alan H.

When the dust had settled there was no less than 16 riders caught up in this melee !!  #3 innocently departs - haha!!

I managed to keep the bike going but had alot of people to pass! The first two laps went by in a blur of weaving through bikes left right and center until suddenly the only bike that I could see in front of me was Mason Wilkie whipping his YZF450 rather flat a couple hundred meters ahead of me.

That meant I was in fourth place which could have been okay had my brain not started doing the math when I realised Rhys was the position ahead of him.

"If this event was scored individually I would need to finish in third behind Rhys to win the MX2 overall with a 1-3 finish compared to his 2-2 results. Lets go Broxeee!"

It wasn't until the very last lap that Mason realised he had to stop showing off and get down to business evidenced by his very straight line jumps on the final lap to which I responded with a thumbs up as we were side by side over the Centre Point. I then used the slingshot of the outside berm after that to get a run down the next sloppy straight that meant I could out-brake him into the following right hander. He then made a charge before the DAM jump where I felt his wheels brush past my left handside as he hit the ski jump much harder and would have passed me if I hadn't held the inside before the rollers with an over jump of my own, holding on, to get my third at the finish.

With Michael Phillips' collision with a stray tyre in race one and Cody Coopers misfortune with not being able to start the second race it almost felt like I had won the day even though Rotorua got the teams overall and the Tauranga MCC finished in thirteenth place.

Anyway it felt great to be giving it heaps and is a good lead up to the endurance races I have coming up.  The Leatt Four Hour I am teaming up with Karl Power for and the Tarawera 100 coming in July that Bay Honda would like me to win, no pressure of course.

A huge thanks to Botany and Blue Wing Honda, Alpinestars, Dirtrider Downunder, Castrol, Pirelli, Spy and POD!