New Zealand ATV MOTO-X
National Championship 2006
Amberiey, Canterbury
October 20-21, 2006
By: Harold Goodman
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Harold Goodman, Doug Gust,
and Kory Ellis Invade New Zealand
New Zealand - The New Zealand trip was
quite the experience especially since it was my first
time traveling out of the Northern Hemisphere. After a
five hour flight from Detroit to L.A., I boarded another
plane for the twelve hour long flight across the Pacific
Ocean to New Zealand, which seemed like forever, but at
least I was on the same flight as Kory Ellis for the long
journey. After spending nearly a day on the plane and
time zones, it took me three days just to get adjusted
to the change in time.
Unlike home, the seasons in New Zealand are the opposite,
and it was spring time in the South Hemisphere, which
was an added bonus. When we arrived at the Airport,
Ian Ffitch and Cy Bettjeman were waiting for us to arrive.
We wasted no time in getting to business, so we grabbed
breakfast, dropped off our luggage, and headed to the
track. The track was nestled in a beautiful rolling
hill pasture (paddock in New Zealand), which was scarred
by huge holes and jumps that were to make up the demo
track that Doug Gust, Kory Ellis, and I were going to
use to put on a show. It was a pretty good track that
they built just for us, but it was a little sketchy
the first time around because the jumps were built by
digging small craters to provide the dirt for the jump
take off and landing, so you definitely didn’t
want to come up short and fall into what seemed to be
a bottomless pit.
The main purpose of our trip down south was to provide
a show and participate in the annual New Zealand National.
Unlike in the USA, they don’t have a race series
spread over six months, but instead, they race seven
Motos over one weekend on only one track to determine
the National Champion. Each year, a brand new track
is built by the club hosting the event, and it is laid
out and built only a few days before the national, so
no one rider will have an advantage over anyone else
for the championship.
The track wasn’t like anything you would find
back home at the ATVA MX Nationals, it was primarily
a grass track with only a few jumps, but there were
a few natural terrain jumps, which provided some huge
air. The one jump, we put a little lip on to make it
a fourth gear wide open leap, which had a span of over
ninety feet to the downhill landing. The track ended
up being fairly technical, with elevation changes and
off cambers, and the whole track got somewhat rough,
but I guess I’m getting a little ahead of myself.
Before were able to do any riding, there was a lot
of work involved just in building our race quads out
of stock machines provided by a local dealership. I
came prepared with as many racing components from my
race quad as possible, so I could turn the stocker into
something that I felt comfortable racing. Besides the
normal, A-arms, swingarm, shocks, and nerfbars, I also
brought along my entire Curtis Sparks top end and bolted
it on for a significant boost in power from the stock
Honda 450R. The conversation was a lot more difficult
than expected because Kory, Doug, and I were both limited
on time and accessibility to tools that we usually have
available for the job. In the end, it all worked out
and all three of us were happy with what we were riding.
During the time that we weren’t working on our
quads, we got to see some of the beautiful New Zealand
country side. Ian was our tour guide, and he did an
awesome job of showing us around and keeping us entertained.
He had everything lined up from rafting, jet boat rides,
hot springs, and paintball, which was something that
I haven’t done since college. The one thing that
you couldn’t miss on our tour was the abundance
of sheep because they were everywhere you looked and
even in the town’s grazing in the people’s
yards, but Somehow, I managed to be there for two weeks
and not get a single picture of one sheep. Unfortunately
for Doug, he missed out on most of the sight seeing
and adventures because he arrived a week later than
Kory and I.
After all the preparation, it was finally time for
the national. People began arriving at the track on
Friday, but there was no practice until Saturday morning.
The locals were excited to see we arrived to compete
in their national, so we signed plenty of autographs
during our visit. The total turnout for the event was
significantly lower than what we normally see at a national
with only around 130 entries, but considering, the New
Zealand population is less than that of Michigan; it
was actually a descent turnout in retrospect. There
were numerous classes for riders of different skill
level to compete, which were similar to the ATVA MX
Nationals.
Saturday morning practice began, which was quickly
followed by the first of seven Motos to determine the
national champion. Yes, I said “Seven Motos”.
We did four Motos on Saturday followed by three Motos
on Sunday, which is the minimum amount of Motos required
to declare a national champion. For those daring to
compete in multiple classes, it was extremely difficult
because you were coming off the track only to stage
for the next Moto.
Day One provided an almost perfect day for racing except
for the fact it was really windy, which made it nearly
impossible to launch one of the jumps during the Motos.
The day started out with “Digger” Doug Gust
winning the first two Motos, and I was able to squeeze
out the third Moto win, but Doug was back out front
for the final Moto of the day for his third win. I finished
right behind him, and Kory Ellis finished all four Motos
holding down third place.
Saturday night, the clouds rolled in and it rained
all night long and into Sunday, which turned the track
into a sloppy mess. What made it even more miserable
was the fact that we didn’t even have any good
way to clean up in-between Motos. Regardless of the
weather, the show must go on, and in the fifth Moto,
two locals finished in the first two spots, and I finished
in third with Doug finishing way back around sixth place.
In the sixth Moto, I was able to claim my second win
of the weekend, which was enough to boost me into the
points lead. In the final Moto, one of the top New Zealand
riders, Quentin Palmer,, claimed the win, and I finished
in second followed by Doug in third, which secured me
the overall champions. Doug finished out the weekend
in second overall with Quentin Palmer rounding out the
Podium, which left Kory Ellis with a fourth overall
finish. The only bad news was that if I would have made
the pass on Quentin in the final Moto, Kory would have
finished in the final podium position. Our host, Ian
Ffitch rounded out the top five.
After finally getting cleaned up, we went to the awards
banquet, which immediately followed the racing. The
club hosting the race did an excellent running the entire
event, which surely kept them busy. At the banquet,
we signed many more autographs and had great fun with
all our new Kiwi friends.
The two weeks in New Zealand came and
went in a flash, and it was an incredible experience,
which left me with plenty of memories. The racing was
awesome as well with both extremes of motocross from
dry good racing to a muddy mess, which made for a great
championship. The coolest thing about it was that I
am currently the New Zealand National Champion, so now
I have to decide if I plan to return next year to defend
my title.
I can’t thank the crew in New Zealand enough for
given us this opportunity, and atleast for one year,
I have some bragging that I won the Championship in
New Zealand over Doug Gust and Kory Ellis.
www.atv.co.nz
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