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Jason McEwen raced desperately to win the New Zealand Motorcycle Grand Prix at Ruapuna, looked over his shoulder after he received the chequered flag, and received a surprise.
The Palmerston North racer had expected to see Hamilton young gun Jared Love right on his tail, but instead there was just empty space.
Love had crashed coming out of the hairpin on the final lap - just behind McEwen, after the two had exchanged places twice within two corners - and McEwen had not realised that he now had the race won.
McEwen continued to push his Kawasaki ZX-9R as hard as he could, getting into a dangerous-looking power-slide on the final corner, but survived to add the Formula One GP to his long list of achievements.
Love, 23, had been close to the greatest success of his career but got carried away in the heat of the moment. \"I wanted to prove that we could actually play with him,\" he said. \"It was a silly mistake.\"
Dean Fulton of Mt Maunganui took second on his Kawasaki ZX-7RR, and Paul Gee of Auckland third on a standard Yamaha R1. McEwen and Fulton also finished first and second in the first F1 race, and Fulton leads the series by 19 points from McEwen after three rounds of the Motorcycle Trader national championships.
McEwen had earlier won the GP in the Open Sports Production class, riding a different Kawasaki. However in the second race he ran off the track trying too hard to get away from the Yamaha R1 of reigning champion Tony Rees of Kawerau, ran onto the grass and dropped to second.
Rees and McEwen share the lead in this class, and Rees also maintained his healthy lead in the 600cc Sports Production class as he and Oamaru Honda rider Brad Selfe each scored a first and a second, with Selfe taking the GP race.
As well, Rees won the Formula Two GP - remarkably, his first ever GP win in a long and successful career.
