KIWI TEAM NAMED
The New Zealand team to contest the 2013 Trials des Nations at La Chatre, in France, on September 8 has been named.
The Kiwi team will be Wellington’s current national moto trials champion Jake Whitaker, New Plymouth’s Matt Foster, Dunedin’s Blake Fox, Rotorua’s John Haynes, Christchurch’s Stef Downes and Tauranga’s Gabby Gundry. The manager will be seven-time former New Zealand champion Warren Laugesen, of Napier.
Whitaker, Foster, Haynes and Gundry were in action at rounds seven and eight of the North Island Moto Trials Championships in Taranaki at the weekend, with six-time consecutive national champion Whitaker, unsurprisingly, the best-performed of the bunch, winning the experts grade on both days.
“It is awesome that New Zealand is sending a team to France this year,” said the 21-year-old Whitaker.
“New Zealand has competed at this level in the past but this is the first time we have sent a team since I have been riding … and that’s about 10 years. It’s a huge honour to be selected. We are a very young team and it will be a real eye-opener for some of our riders.”
© Words and photos by Andy McGechan, www.BikesportNZ.com
