Measuring Up

Woodville GP

Woodville 2013 is dried and dusted.  The 52^nd Grand Prix event once again drew the cream of New Zealand’s MXers plus overseas riders for a weekend of great racing. Woodville is the event where everyone is equal, where no one has a home advantage. As a once-a-year venue only, no particular rider has any special claim or unfair advantage over his or her rivals. It is a working farm for the other 363 days of the year. It’s also a great chance for riders to see where they’re at on the national level, a good measuring stick for those looking to compete in the up-coming National Championships.

Juniors: Saturday was race day for the Minis and Juniors. It was dusty and there were a few crashes for a variety of reasons but most of the local Tauranga riders were pretty pleased with their results, even though no-one returned with a title.

 

Evan Hawkless (pictured flying sky high in the top image) was thrilled with Woodville and his 8^th place result. “It’s the fastest track he’s ridden on,” says his dad, Andrew, “it was his first time at Woodville and his first time in the Junior 125cc 15-16 years category.  For Evan, top 10 was awesome. Now, he can’t wait for the Nationals."

Aaron Wiltshier (the number 5 leading the pack in the photo above) also rode the 125cc 15-16 Years class and had a great day.  He set the fastest qualifying time by 3 seconds but in spite of fantastically close racing, his 3 second places could not prevent friend and rival Hadleigh Knight from clean sweeping the class.

Cam McCaskie had a “bloody good” 2 days. He finished 7^th in the Junior 14-16 250cc 4 stroke class.  It was Cam’s last ride as a Junior so he was rapt to do so well in a big event.

Matt Kenyon was on fire and started the day with an impressive 3^rd place in the 250cc class, just one second off the leaders. Unfortunately, race 2 saw him slide off in a corner.  The corner was benign but the bang on his head wasn’t. A concussed Matt continued on 7 seconds per lap more slowly and salvaged a 10th place but remembers nothing at all. Race 3 was a DNS while he was checked out at the hospital. Good news; he’s all OK.

In the 12-14 125cc class, Josiah Natzke (1/1/1) took the honours ahead of Jayden Turnwald (2/2/3). Ben Broad just missed the top 5 with his 4/8/6 finishes.

Luke (at left) and Alex Fraser-Brown were the only two local minis racing at Woodville. Luke had a ball. It was his first race on a 65cc so it was a real learning curve. His best finish was a great 12^th in the 7-8 Years 65cc class.  Unfortunately, Alex broke his ankle in the practice for the 9-11 Years 65cc class. He had put some serious training in for the event so was sorely disappointed. But those are the breaks - no pun intended. Both boys are dead keen to be back next year.

Trent Duggan competed in the 85cc class and just scraped into the 8-10 years category. He thought the day was really good.” Coming into the last race, there were 3 of us tied on points for third place. I didn’t get a good start, things didn’t go my way and I ended up 5^th overall in my last race in the 8-10 years, he says. “I’ll be in the 11-12 bracket for the Nationals.”  Isaac Broad made the top 10 in the 8-10 Years.

Seniors Sunday: The track was hard and fast and the dust was terrible but you just had to open it up and go for it. Some say the average speed was almost 60kph. It was a hard event for the organizers. The Sunday started off wetter.  They had ripped and watered the track but it became hard pack, didn’t rut up and  kept on cooking. It was a one line track.

Three of the juniors, Aaron Wiltshier, Cam McCaskie and Evan Hawkless, also fronted up on the Sunday for the senior races.

On Sunday, Aaron  fell just short of the 125cc podium. In the first race, he fell off twice and finished 7^th.  In the second race, the sprint race, he was 2^nd and in the final race he was 4^th. The Saturday racing had taken it out of  Evan  and the level of racing in the Under 21 class was a good 2 notches up. His placings improved as the day went on and he got more used to the track.

Cam (pictured above) rode in the Senior MX2 on the Sunday. Out of the 56 potentials, he was rapt to qualify 29^th. Riding his 2 stroke 250 in race 1 was not a confidence booster so he changed back to the 4 stroke and definitely felt renewed when, after getting caught up in a crash, he chased and caught 15 riders on his way to the finish.

Logan Blackburn finished on the podium but lost the 125 GP crown he won in 2012.  This year, he qualified 2^nd fastest but finished third overall. A 3^rd in race 1 and a 1^st in race 3 (“Winning by 13sec !!  Wow what a race!”) were not quite enough to make up for a disastrous race 2. “I got a shocking start- another one! but pushed through and within the 1^st lap I had made it through to 3^rd.  Then I made a bad line choice and went down in the mud.  There was a big gap from me to the front pack so I pushed harder and then dropped it again in the same corner!  And obviously dropped back again!"

Ryan Metz is back into racing and in the 125cc class. Despite an average day, points wise, and 7^th place overall, he has reason to be pleased. “I had a crash in race one that left me 9^th”, he reports, “and then, in race 2, I was in third place chasing Aaron when I had a big cross in the rollers. I lost my front brakes in the crash so finished 6^th and had to DNS race 3. Still, it’s good to know the speed is still there and I’m looking forward to the North Island rounds of the nationals.”

Campbell King, (on left) a part-time local, had an “alright kind of weekend” in the MX 2 class. “I had bad starts in all 3 races”, he says.  “This was a real problem in race 2. With only 4 sprint laps, there was no time to work back up and I finished 15^th.  But in race 3, I was way back at the start but got through the pack up to 9^th”. Campbell will be doing all the National rounds.

Roydon White did better than he expected in the MX1 class. “I was pretty happy to finish in the top 15”, he says. “With work, I haven’t been riding or training as much as I’d have liked and the  30 strong MX 2 field had NZ’s top 10 full time riders plus a couple of Aussies. I qualified 13^th and my worst result was 15^th due to a really bad start result so I’m not complaining. I could have ridden in the Champion of Champs race but they had it part way through the day.  I opted out because I didn’t want to have anything go wrong before my last race.  The track was pretty gnarly, real one line stuff and the races were long, 2o -24 minute motos. The big bonus was I didn’t crash.”  Roydon is aiming to be in the top 15 in the upcoming Nationals.

Our local pro-riders were at Woodville in force.   Rhys Carter finished fifth overall in the talent-packed MX2 class, getting better as the day wore on. His best result was a third placing in the last race of the day, just when the track was at its worst and dust was also making visibility difficult.

Part of the talent was current MX2 world number 4 Jake Nicolls who showed how it is done with wins in all three races but Tauranga’s Peter Broxholme had his hand on the throttle as well. After terrible starts in the first two motos, he got into gear in the Invitation race, shaving 3 seconds off his previous best lap time, and doing it every lap to finish 7^th.

“For the final moto,” reports Broxy, “I lined up in the same place and while my launch wasn’t as good, the inside once again pulled through and I was in second place behind Cam Dillon. Things changed quickly as Jake held the throttle on like a mad man to pass both of us in one section, before I passed Cam in the next, before latching on to Jake and not letting him get away

At times we were pulling three seconds a lap on those behind us and once we started hitting lappers I was keen to take advantage of the carnage and see if I could give Jake Nicolls even more of a run. Unfortunately he handled the traffic much better than I did and won with 11 seconds over me, while another 19 seconds back was Rhys Carter. The second place gave me enough points for fourth overall, with Scott Columb and Daryl King in second and third.”

Ben Townley won the MX1 class and the Invitation Race. He was happy with the day’s results and acknowledged that the event had provided a good opportunity to test the 2013 Honda CR450 under race conditions. "We definitely made some gains today and we come away knowing what we need to work on. It was great to be able to test the bike under race conditions, we learnt a lot and will do some fine tuning based on today’s learning’s. I am looking forward to the first round of the New Zealand Motocross Nationals, as my speed improves so does the need to change the bike.”

Cody Cooper gave Ben a good run for his money, winning moto 1 and taking second place in motos 2 and 3. “We were only using stock front forks today and that did cause a few problems, with the track beating me up a bit,” said Cooper afterwards.

“But this was an excellent build-up for the nationals and I am thrilled with the bike. I head across to Australia this week for some testing and we’ll be raring to go when the New Zealand Champs kick off.”

The Vets class was dominated by Darryll King with 3 first places.  Whakatane’s Darren Capill came 8^th with zero points in moto1 badly negating his two 3^rd places in motos 2 and 3.

Spectators were able to get up close and personal to the action as the bikes splashed their way upstream in the much awaited crowd pleasing river race. The water level was quite low but race winner, Paul Whibley, seemed to float on the water. Chris Power, who had won the GNCC round at Maramarua the day before, came third behind Mitch Rowe. “It’s always a great day”, says Chris, “and so is the prize money!”

Congratulations to all those who competed and helped make Woodville 2013 a success. Best of luck with the Nationals.

 

 

Click for other articles about the Origins of Woodville  the Invitation Race. 

Full 2013 results are available on MyLaps.  Sunday Seniors     Saturday Minis    Saturday Juniors

Click here to view footage from the 2013 event.