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Hawkes Bay Six Hour topples to Power Racing
Preparation, teamwork, planning and sheer outright riding skills brought victory to Power Racing on their first professional outing in the world of X Country and Enduro.
Riding the fuel injected Honda CRF450R, Chris and Karl Power coolly sized up the opposition and cruised to a 10 minute overall win at the 19th running of the prestigious Hawkes Bay Six Hour race sponsored by Suzuki NZ and DRD Magazine.
Chris was the nominated starter but even the two hours practice starts session Friday morning failed him and it took three kicks to fire up which left him way back down the field at the first bottleneck into the forest proper. Karl was resigned to playing catch up when Chris emerged from the forest hard on leader Rory Mead’s tail having disposed of 50 plus riders in the first lap.
Karl took over and started eating into the 40 second lead of the Mead/Smith Yamaha combination and a seesaw battle ensued for the next three laps. Riding Honda for the first time in four years, it was taking Karl a bit of time getting used to the set up that Chris runs. “The suspension was set for Chris (a podgy 10kg heavier) so I was getting some big hits from time to time but after a while I adjusted and settled into the race” said Karl. “It’s damn slippery out there and you really have to be careful on the blind corners”. Returning recently from the USA riding the GNCC series with Paul Whibley, Karl was ready to kick some ass.
At about the 3 ½ hr stage, Chris reported that Rory’s bike had expired on a big climb (clutch apparently) which immediately took the pressure off as the Yamaha and Honda teams had opened up a 10 minute gap on their next rivals. Chris was pleased with the handling of the big Honda and proved that his return to the big bangers from the nimble but now out of production CR125 Honda has been the right move. One incident reminded Chris that X Country racing and the changing track can catch you out anytime. “I launched into a muddy hollow after a long down hill only to find that a sharp lip of about 200 mm had formed since the first lap. I found myself rev-limiting along on my front wheel for about 20 metres until it eventually settled down letting me off with a warning and some pretty sever puckering.”
For the next couple of laps, the boys increased their lead over the two MetalMan Kawasaki teams and looked to be cruising to a comfortable win. But as Greg was saying to the already congratulating admirers, “its not over till its over”.
A tension filled wait on the penultimate lap. Chris was 5 minutes behind schedule and no sign of him anywhere. Time was counting down. Things were getting tense. Chris has seriously “clipped a tree” damaging his back wheel so with 10 minutes to spare had decided to nurse the big Honda back to the pits where a replacement from Karls CRF450 was fitted in short time. An excellent call and skillful ride to avoid a DNF. All that remained was for Karl to bring the mighty Honda home and take a great win for Power Racing – 15 minutes ahead of the runner up team.
Thanks to the support from Honda, Castrol, DID Chain, Dunlop Tyres, EzyUp Shelters, JT Sprockets, No Fear Race Wear, Progrip grips, SPY Goggles, One Industries Helmets, Acerbis Plastics, DRD Magazine, RG3 Suspension, Power Adventures and the team at Power Racing.
