Pushing to the Max

Michael Godfrey Memorial MX

On Saturday 2^nd June, the cream of New Zealand’s MX talent descended on Omihi, the newly developing wine region 40 minutes north of Christchurch, for the 29^th Annual Michael Godfrey Memorial MX event.

The track is a good old fashioned natural terrain track; a paddock, in fact, that is in crop for 8 months and used, with the addition of a few jumps, once a year for MX. There is also a separate mini track.

The Michael Godfrey Memorial MX is an iconic South Island event – the South Island equivalent of Woodville – and, for the competitors, a real thrill to ride. The event is in memory of promising young junior MXer and also rugby player, Michael Godfrey, who was killed in a car accident at the age of 16. His close friend Graeme Allan, won the first event in 1984 but nowadays has the responsibility for organizing the 2 day event.

“The 2012 event was the best event ever,” states Graeme. “It was a national calibre event with over 300 riders competing and, thanks to our sponsors, The Rock and Monster Energy, who came up trumps with all the promotion, we also had the biggest gate take ever. This year we went out on a limb a bit and financed some of the top North Island riders to come down and Twisty Cachia, who happened to be here from Australia, gave it a tiny international flavour. The riders were really pushing themselves to the max. The huge depth of talent made it an amazing weekend for riders and spectators alike.”

The Bay of Plenty was well represented. Cody Cooper, in photo above, was in totally dominant form winning all five of the MX1 races plus the 30 minute feature race.

“I have been working on my starts and that aspect was good for me all weekend at the Michael Godfrey event”, says Cody. “My fitness and strength is now a lot better too. The bike was awesome and I want to really thank (event organiser) Graeme Allan for getting me down there. The track was great and I had a lot of fun.

Bay rider, Rhys Carter, was 3^rd in the MX2, 4^th in the MX1 and 5^th in the feature race

Queenstown’s Scott Columb flew the flag for the South winning the MX2 class, coming 3^rd on the same bike in the MX2 class and then second in the feature race – a total of 11 races in 2 days.

Dion Picard was the dominant junior rider and mirrored Cody Cooper with five wins in the junior 15-16 years’ 125/250cc class and top of the podium in the junior 125-250cc feature race.

MX1: 1^st Cody Cooper, 2^nd Justin McDonald, 3^rd Scott Columb, 4^th Rhys Carter.

MX2: 1^st Scott Columb, 2^nd Kayne Lamont, 3^rd Rhys Carter, 4^th Justin McDonald, 8^th Campbell King, 9^th Dion Picard, 10^th Peter Smit.

Senior Feature Race: 1^st Cody Cooper, 2^nd Scott Columb, 3^rd Justin McDonald, 4^th Kayne Lamont, 5^th Rhys Carter, 6^th Isaiah McGoldrick, 7^th Dion Picard, 8^th Campbell King, 9^th Twisty Cachia, 10^th Peter Smit.

You can see full results on the My Laps site, although the 6 mini classes and the large clubman’s class do not figure as transponders were not used in these classes.

The Michael Godfrey memorial Event is run by the Chrishchurch Offroad Motorcycle Club.

Photo: Don Scott