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Don’t let the looks fool you, there’s a hard-as-nails fighter beneath that soft, feminine exterior.
Wellington’s Hazel Rushworth (20) is one of New Zealand's leading dirt bike racers, a position even she is surprised to find herself in after just a handful of years riding motorcycles.
Working as a salesperson at the Motorad motorcycle shop in downtown Wellington, she's in daily contact with motorcycles and the (mostly) men who ride them and this is perhaps what has given her the edge when it comes to serious competition.
Rushworth (Yamaha YZF250) is running second in the intermediate under-300cc four-stroke class after the fourth of six rounds of the national enduro series near Wellington at the weekend and, after the rounds the follow in the Riverhead Forest (April 1) and near Pahiatua (April 15), reckons she may even improve on that.
One of only two female competitors at round three at Waimiha last month, Rushworth finished 92nd overall of 131 competitors, shocking many of her male rivals, and she was stronger again at the weekend. Rushworth was 18th out of 69 intermediate grade competitors on Saturday and third in her bike class. Of those 69 riders, 17 failed to complete the rugged course in the hills and valley alongside the Akatarawa River.
“I’m stoked with my weekend. I’ve just got to stay consistent now. Quite a few riders did not finish at the weekend and I could easily have joined them. I drowned my bike a couple of times in one of the waist-deep bogs but it never let me down.
“I only started riding bikes about four years ago. I was 16, I think, when I first gave motocross a go. It's just so much fun,” she said.
“I guess it's a family thing. Dad was always at the bike events, gathering results and so forth for his motorcycling web site and his enthusiasm for motorcycling has rubbed off.
“To begin with, I was just happy if I could finish an enduro. I think that's an achievement in itself.”
Now she's a title contender and that's an achievement of mammoth proportions.
“My rivals are great guys. I'm one of the very few females out there but they don't do me any favours. Some a real gentlemen and stop to help if I'm stuck in a bog somewhere but I return the favour too.
“But the very top guys, the expert class leaders, would just as soon use me for traction as stop and help. They'd think nothing of running me over.”
Rushworth broke her foot at the Woodhill Forest round of the nationals, near Auckland, in July and then broke her collarbone at another event in October but says that's just part of the sport and, although only back on a motorcycle two months now, she's 100% fit again.
“I can't say enough about how much I value the support I get from my boss, Brendon Keogh. He often picks me up and we go riding together.”
The weekend's fourth round of the nationals was a virtual home event for her, the event off Moonshine Road on the Haywards Hill as close as the series came to New Zealand’s Capital city this season.
The New Zealand enduro nationals are doubly important this season as the Kiwi riders prepare for the International Six Days Enduro (ISDE), being staged near Taupo in November.
It will be the first time the ISDE, regarded as the Olympic Games of dirt bike endurance racing, will be held in New Zealand and Rushworth is one of many Kiwi amateurs keen to test themselves there against the sport's international stars.
