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From: Todd Sutherland:
Hi Motarders
Happy New Year
It\'s on again Bike Mart is running a Supermoto (dirt and tarmac) day at Centennial Park Taupo. So put it on your calendar now, Saturday 5 April.
Next point of interest is entries for the Paeroa street race close this Friday. If you want an entry form fax 09 416 5308 with a return fax number and we\'ll fax you the entry form. The Paeroa round will not have a Supermotard class but with the change in circuit layout motards should be reasonably competitive in F3. Especially if it turns wet, as demonstrated by the domination of F3 in the wet at Wanganui.
Motarding signed out 2002 with a bang at the Wanganui Cemetery Circuit. Forget what they showed you on TV. The real action at the Boxing Day meeting was the Supermotard races.
The crowd were treated to the sideways antics of Briggs, Stephenson and the like, and as few spectators had ventured out to the qualifying sessions held the previous day (Christmas day would you believe?) they were gob smacked with what \'the lads\' were up to.
New Plymouth\'s Craig Flood turned the tables and did the winning in the Motard races on his Honda XR650. The former \'Battle of the Streets\' 250 production champion showed us all the quick way around the circuit.
Although he had to settle for second in the Motard races at Wanganui, KTM\'s Stephen Briggs did manage to take the F3 points lead at the day\'s conclusion. The great thing was 10 000 more people got to see the exciting world of Supermotard up close. Pity the predetermined TV coverage couldn\'t capitalize on the excitement that the motards bought but big ups to Barbara Lett and the team for recognizing the need for a separate class in the busy race programme. The class had one of the biggest fields.
Cemetery Circuit 26 December 2002 Supermotards.
Points overall
Place - Name - Machine - Sponsor - Total
1 Craig Flood XR650 Honda Energy Honda 40
20 20
2 Stephen Briggs 660 SM KTM KTM NZ 34 17
17
3 Craig Scott KX500 Kawasaki Dave Leary 28
15 13
4 Nigel Healey KTM520 SX Central Motorcycles 25 10
15
5 John Fallwell Honda XR650\'02 Cycletreads Ak 19
8 11
6 Brent Symes CRF450 Honda Dave Whitaker Honda 18 9
9
7 Craig Sullivan WR426F Yamaha Sawyer Motorcycles 16 6
10
8 Phillip Gray KTM SM Crash Test Engineering 13 13 0
9 Peter Hewer XR650 Energy Honda 12 4
8
10 Brent Neilson KTM 380 Twin City Motorcycles 12 7 5
Cemetery Circuit Notes- (thanks to Kiwi Rider)
Motards of all kinds figured in all sorts of events. Peter Sales and son Chris were both joint winners in the Historic and Post Classes on an XR600 and \'73 TM435 respectively.
Aucklander Paul Pavletich managed a second (behind Aaron Slight on Rees\'s R1!!!) in one of the Legends races, finishing second equal for the day with Bike Torque\'s Russell Josiah.
Four strokes versus two. Considering there were only 4 two strokes entered in Motards they faired very well. Craig Scott was 3rd overall for the day in both Supermotard and Formula 3. Brent Neilson on a KTM 380 was 10th overall and local, Jayden Carrick managed a 9th place finish in the first motard race and 10th fastest lap overall on a RM250.
Phillip Gray from Sydney Australia gave the class an international flavor. Gray originally a Kiwi from the East Coast has lived in Sydney for 10 odd years and figured a return racing holiday was just the ticket. Riding a modified KTM he placed 4th in the first race before becoming involved in a start line incident, which ruled him out of the points for the second race. The Sydneysider was 12th on points overall for formula 3.
Across the ditch.
Grand Prix racer Gary McCoy was seen racing at a Supermotard Challenge meeting in Queensland in early December last year. The recent Kawasaki signing, rode a Kawasaki KX500 to 2nd and 3rd places in 2 classes. King of slide McCoy is said to regularly hone his technique on big motocrossers on tarmac.
Aussie mag Australian Motorcycle News rated the Australian World Supermoto round as thier worst promoted meeting. \'...crowd figures were woeful...\' they said. \'Lucky the racing itself was top notch\' was the only positive comment made re the November event. Kiwi\'s who attended said that the Suzuki and Bike Mart (plug, plug) events run first up would have shown it up.
Remember you can catch all this and more each month in Kiwi Rider.
