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FEBRUARY 19, 2007: The fastest man does not always win the races.
That was the scenario for visiting Australian Chris Seaton at the second and final round of the Battle of the Streets motorcycle series in Paeroa on Sunday.
The Yamaha ace set the track alight as he set fastest times in both the Formula One and Formula Two classes and then raced to victory in the day’s first F1 race.
But the 22-year-old from Albury, near Melbourne, struck problems in his next F1 outing when he crashed. He picked himself up and fought back but had to settle for third.
He looked set to take his Yamaha back to the top step of the podium in the Robert Holden Memorial feature race but again he crashed.
It was scant consolation for Seaton that he had set such blistering times, no mean feat around the tricky Paeroa streets and with New Zealand’s elite for company, but, on this occasion at least, his remarkable speed did not translate into points.
Seaton twice finished third in the F2 outings.
Hamilton’s Andrew Stroud won the F1 class and Feilding’s Craig Shirriffs won the F2 class.
“It was an up and down day for us,” conceded Bernard Racing Yamaha Team owner Brian Bernard. “A win and then a crash is not how we hoped the day would go.”
Seaton will be keen, no doubt, to rectify matters when the New Zealand season heads back to the purpose-built tracks, for round four of the national road-race series at Manfeild next weekend.
Meanwhile, Yamaha did clinch the silverware in the Formula Three class with Foxton’s Jason Easton (32) wrapping up the series when he won the day’s first race at Paeroa.
“I had a good run in the morning race, good enough to give me a huge points lead,” said Easton (Tigcraft Yamaha YZ450).
“I didn’t want to take too many risks after that and relaxed a little,” he said, after finishing runner-up in the final race. “I always like to win but sometimes you’ve got to ride intelligently.”
Runner-up to the Yamaha man was New Plymouth’s Jason Nairn (Suzuki).
