A WINNING DEBUT | Bikesportnz

Six wins from six starts, The Honda Shop Racing Team’s debut outing near Te Kuiti on Sunday could not have been any more impressive than that.

National MX1 champion Cody Cooper, of Mount Maunganui, surprised nobody with his dominant performance on the Honda CRF450 on Sunday, scoring a hat-trick of wins and ominously looking increasingly more comfortable as the day wore on.

“I’ve had a month off racing (since representing New Zealand at the Motocross of Nations in Germany in September) and so I didn’t really want to push things today,” said Cooper afterwards.

“It was really just my first day of proper training for the season ahead. I just wanted to get used to the bike and get suspension and other settings sorted.”

If Cooper was “taking things easy” on Sunday then his rivals must now realise they have some work to do and they’ll need to be much sharper if they are going to challenge Cooper when the New Zealand Motocross Championships kick off in Timaru in February.

Runner-up to Cooper in the MX1 class on Sunday was Waikato’s Jesse Wiki (Waikato Scaffolders KTM 450), with Atiamuri’s Dion Picard (JT Racing Kawasaki KX450F) taking the third step of the podium.

With no rider yet selected to ride the MX2 (250cc) class for The Honda Shop Racing Team, team manager Ben Townley decided that “the track looked too good today not to go riding” himself and so he kitted up in his Alpinestars gear and proceeded to win all three MX2 races at the Te Kuiti circuit.

“I only decided to ride this morning,” said the former world champion, who had actually announced his retirement from fulltime racing back in March.

Runner-up to Townley in the MX2 class was Taupo’s Nick Saunders (Team Green Kawasaki KX250F), with Rotorua’s Scotty Canham (BikesportNZ.com Kawasaki KX250F) the No.3 man on the podium.

“The main thing for the team today was to get Cody out on the bike, to see what needs still to be done before the nationals and to start chipping away at our preparation for that series,” said Townley.

“Of course to get a few race wins along the way today is great too.”

The team now builds towards several other major races ahead of the four-round national championships – the annual Whakatane Summercross in late December and the annual New Zealand Motocross Grand Prix at Woodville in January.

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