WHO IS THAT RIDER? | Bikesportnz

The BikesportNZ.com photo archive is a treasure trove of classic old snaps.

We have decided that each week we are going to run an archive photo or two – a bit of a guessing game for you. See if you can answer the questions about BOTH photos.

We’ll offer you a few clues, but we also want to keep you guessing.

Check back and we’ll give you the answers next week, along with our next “Who’s that?” feature photos.

Crown Kiwi – EVS – Alpinestars – 100%

Plus, we have a sponsor for the feature. Thanks to Crown Kiwi, EVS, Alpinestars and 100% apparel and accessories, we can offer a small prize each week – a tee-shirt or a cap – to the first respondent with the correct answers.

Nobody came up with the exact right answers again this week, although Waikato’s Mark Whyte came pretty close, so we declare him the winner.

Clues for photo above:

This photo shows a rider who specialised in racing a Kawasaki, and mostly in the 125cc class, eventually winning the national 125cc crown in the late 1980s. However, he didn’t win it riding a green bike.

Who is it?

We do also need you to answer the question about the photo below.

Clues for photo below:

This photo shows a Suzuki RM125 rider racing at the Taikorea Motorcycle Park, just outside Palmerston North, in about 1986.

He won a Manawatu club motocross title in 1985, but that was on a green bike. He also finished third in the New Zealand TT Championships that same year. He is still extremely active in the sport and not just involved with motocross, but supercross, road-racing, super motard, trials, enduro and cross-country racing too. Who is it?

Last week’s characters revealed:

The main photo last week showed a trio of riders heading into the S-bend at Manfeild in 1993. We asked you to name all three individuals?

They are (from left) then national superbike champion Russell Josiah, Loren Poole on the Britten, and Chris Roberts, on bike No.11.

The second photo was of a Kiwi international, competing internationally. This is an easy one so we wanted three questions answered please.

We asked, who is it, what year was it taken and what was the international event?

It is then factory Kawasaki rider Aaron Slight, of Masterton, in action at the World Superbike Championships at Manfeild in 1992.

Slight and his Australian team-mate Robbie Phillis were the only Japanese bike riders to challenge the might of Ducati at that time.

Slight won the opening round of the championship that year in Spain, but it was Phillis who led the championship after round four.

American defending world champion Doug Polen eventually won the World Superbike Championship crown for a second time, with fellow Ducati rider Raymond Roche, of France, runner-up and Phillis settling for third. Slight ended the year sixth overall.

And for the statistics buffs out there … Roche had been the world superbike champion two seasons earlier, in 1990. And the man who won the championship in its inaugural year, 1988, and again in 1989? That was none other than American Freddie Merkel, now retired and living on the outskirts of Taupo.

Email your answers to this week’s quiz to contest@bikesportnz.com

Note: Be careful to answer the questions being asked. We may ask for a time, a place, an event or ask for one or several of the individuals in the two photos to be identified.

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