Bring on Next Year!
Juior KTM Cup
“Awesome !” “Cool experience !” “Great atmosphere ! “ The riders and spectators who attended the inaugural Junior KTM Cup event at the Tokoroa track last weekend all agree. It was fantastic and they’ll be back again next year.
Cannon Smith, one of the prime organizers, is equally pleased. “Everything ran smoothly”, he says, “a great KTM turnout, everyone helpful, no protests and only 1 minor accident. The weather did let us down a bit”, he adds, “but we still got our 3 races in.”
Yes, the track was beautifully groomed and the practice round was perfect. A huge half-hour downpour prior to race 1, however, created a challenging quantity of mud but things improved with race rounds 2 and 3.
The mud was particularly problematic for the mini races where 4 Tauranga riders, Sam Meredith, Luke & Alex Fraser Brown and Harrison Forrester-Moore, were competing. After the rain, the track was very obviously wet but the first riders out were the big guys so by the time it got down to the turn of the 50ccs to race, the track was a mud hole. But race they did, even though it was a real struggle to get around. (Check out the depth of the mud in the photo above which shows Sam & Luke and Luke's dad on the start line .) There were bikes dying because of the water, there were bikes sliding off everywhere. Basically, if you stayed on and your bike kept going then you had a chance. And friends boosting you along certainly helped.
The atmosphere was terrific and hyped up to the max. The whole KTM team was there plus the Red Bull promotion team. The kids found it exciting and were totally happy to be part of the KTM “family”.
It was also really
cool to come home with something, which every rider did. There were orange shirts,
caps, water bottles and other give-aways but for the podium winners, there were
huge trophies. Sam Meredith (pictured above) gained 3rd place in the
50cc under 9 years with Luke Fraser-Brown 6th in the same class. Alex
Fraser-Brown was 8th in the
7-13 Yrs 65cc class with Harrison Forrester-Moore in 11th place. Congratulations to them all.
Cannon Smith is definite. “There will be a Junior KTM Cup again next year but it will be earlier in the season.” That’s something to look forward too.
Hopefully, some thought will go into the fixing of the entry fee for the day. This year, for a certain number of people, the fee was slightly prohibitive.
The full results are on www.mylaps.com .
