No Way in Hell

and other results from Oparau & Woodville

maddix park mx

No Way in Hell Enduro near Raglan

“No Way in Hell” is the name Sean Clarke gave to the extreme enduro event he organized last weekend and the event lived up to its name. Only 5 of the more than 60 bikes that braved the elements actually made it round the entire course.  The winner was Chris Birch, the only one to finish unaided, in a time of  3 hours 12 minutes. Mitchell  Nield was  2 ½ hours behind in 2nd place.  Then Mark De Latour, Adrian Smith  and Cam Smith arrived to finish a race that for them had lasted 8 hours and 11 minutes! They had got lost up a back valley. Mike Sheely was there. “ It would have been a hard race, even in the dry”, he said, “ but with all the rain, there was literally  “no way in hell” that I’d get round the whole 50km. Like many, I did the first 30km but it was really hard.  There was an 8km stretch of solid bush.  No tracks.  You just had to find your own way through.  There were ruts halfway up the motor,  logs as high as a normal stock fence, hideously steep slopes you had to “walk” the bike down as you slid on your backside. Sometimes you played Batman going down, then had to go back for the bike. There was one 2 metre drop down to a river bank and then you had to ride a log across to the other side. You could see where the people before had skidded off.  Marshalls were there with ropes pulling people out.  There were bottlenecks, riders too exhausted to get out of the way or even stand up. Had to get their bike off the track and fill ruts with pongas before going on. Everyone survived though.  The marshalls had to walk in from either end and then retrace their steps to check there was no one missing. The event was held on the Scott family farm. Rumour has it that “track building” involved taking a quad to the top and then letting it go. The Scott boys should have been in the race themselves. They beat the marshalls to the top of the rock garden.  Chris Birch rated the track 7/10 for difficulty,” Mike added, “but, being out in front, he probably had the easiest ride, didn’t have to contend with ruts and mess  created by other riders. “Still”,  concluded Mike, “it was an interesting ride”.  For more details check out www.silver-bullet.co.nz

NZ Enduro Champs Round 1 at Oparau

Chris Birch won the first round ahead of Jason Davies and Karl Power.  Chris Power, one of the leading contenders, dislocated his shoulder during the race, put it back in, but when he slammed into the river and put it out again, that was too much.

Scott Barr-Smith had a bad run with punctures (a rim lock a bit suspect??).  Twice did repairs but completed 3 out of the 4 terrain tests with flat tyres.   The Sheely’s also had a fair share of bad luck.  Aiden, in his first enduro, took a wrong turn and got lost. So DNF.  Drisana drowned her bike in the river, had to take the filter out and wring out the water. She got back too late so DNFalso.

For detailed results go to www.silver-bullet.co.nz

The next round will be at Whangamata on 20th February.

Woodville

For Andy McGechan’s report check out www.mnz.co.nz , for detailed results go to www.mylaps.com but for local riders’ comments, stay with us.

The minis raced on the same track as last year and were lucky with the weather - hot, some dust but no rain.   Trent Duggan mounted the podium with a third placing in the 6-8 years 50cc MX.  Chris Merriman had one really mean race. Was second at the first corner but was knocked and went down with a heap of others. The race was not restarted.  Chris was last up but worked his way up to 3rd in the race and a third place overall.  Josh McClymont was 14th in the same class. In the 9-11 years 65cc, Jack McClymont was 13th and Matthew Atkins 20th. Creditable results considering there were 49 entries in this age group.

More local riders competed in the junior events. In the 15-16 years 125cc, Logan Blackburn was 6th, Chris Foster was 21st and Matthew Atchison 24th. In the 13-16 years 85cc, Aaron Wiltshier was 9th, Jackson Holmes 23rd, Cam McCaskie 24th and Matt Kenyon 28th. In the 8-10 years 85cc, Jovhann Phillips was 9th, Trent Haywood was 13th and Thomas Forlong was15th.  It was Thomas’s first time on this track and he really enjoyed it.  His brother Cameron Forlong had a very pleasing podium finish with 2nd place overall in the 11-12 years 85cc class. Read more about Cameron's races here.

Saturday also saw the Senior Support races with Ian Conway gaining 5th place in the Overs class and the Women’s Grand Prix with  Jessie and Casey Waterhouse coming in 4th and 5th and Womens Vet rider Julie Managh  8th.  The Waterhouse placings were a distinct improvement on Summercross and prove that training does pay off.

There was no sun in the Sunday, however.  It was a shocker of a wet day. The worst many riders had seen. The track turned to bog, a couple of feet deep in mud in places, and was shortened. Riders went out for a practice but opted out of the racing.  The water level rose in the river. Whibley tried it but even he drowned his bike so there was no river race.  The water trucks that had worked overtime against the dust the day before very kindly worked overtime cleaning bikes, removing the coatings of mud. The decision was made to run two races per class instead of the usual three.

In these conditions, in the Grand Prix 125cc, Roydon White claimed a career best 3rd, Danny Merriman was 11th, Ryan Metz 12th and Logan Blackburn 19th.  Ryan had clocked the 3rd fastest time in practice but unfortunately his 5th placing in race 2 could not compensate for his DNF in race 1. When put into the Under 21 Years class, these results became 2nd for Roydon, 9th for Danny, 11th for Ryan and 17th for Logan (Read Logan's race report here.)  Roydon, who has only been a senior rider for 6 months, told Colin Smith in the BOP Times Motorsport column, "It was pretty muddy and a whole lot of it came down to the starts.  I got two good starts and went on from there."

In spite of the atrocious conditions, Woodville still offered a great weekend’s racing and riders are already looking forward to next year’s event.  2011 will be the 50th annual Woodville GP and also the 100th anniversary of the Manuwatu Orion Motorcycle Club that organizes  the event.

 
Bookmark and Share