STILL A FIGHTER | Bikesportnz

At age 44, Hamilton’s Darryll King can easily slip onto the start line in the veterans’ class at any event around the world.

The fact is, he was the 2012 veterans’ motocross world champion, a title he picked up near Winchester, in England, in August that year.

Back home, he still remains determined to continue racing against New Zealand’s elite senior racers, young men very much in their prime.

And, to defy the odds, the Yamaha ace is still winning some of these races.

It probably comes as no surprise because he was, afterall, New Zealand MX2 (250cc) champion as recently as 2011 and 2012.

But even as teams line up with their hot new talent to launch their respective 2014 national championship campaigns, the ‘old man’ continues to feature as a podium contender.

Last weekend King again pulled off the unthinkable, taking his Yamaha YZ250 two-stroke to finish first-equal in the MX2 class at the annual Auckland Motocross Championships at Tuakau, near Pukekohe.

He ended up being relegated to overall runner-up on a count-back of race results, his 3-3-1 results equal to the 1-2-4 of Matakohe’s Hamish Dobbyn (CMR Red Bull KTM 250) but deemed slightly inferior because the 21-year-old Dobbyn had finished higher than King in two of the three races.

Even so, it was a triumph for the veteran brigade and the message is clear, King cannot be underestimated when the 2014 national championship series kicks off near Timaru in February.

“I rode the same YZ250 that I raced at the nationals at the start of this year,” King explained. “I just freshened it up with a bit of a rebuild the night before. I wasn’t too sure about whether I’d race this event or not.”

King’s name wasn’t even in the event programme.

“I just thought I’d come along and see if I was still excited about motocross. I guess I still am,” he laughed.

“I felt really good in that final race and wasn’t really doing the mathematics in my head to work out whether it was enough for me to win the day. I was just going for it.”

But, remarkably, his low-key approach very nearly stole the show.

“I’m 100 percent fit and feeling really good at the moment. I am aiming to ride through the summer and will probably race the MX2 class at the nationals.

“After that I will stop. I am just too busy now with other things. The 2014 New Zealand Motocross Championships will be my last,” said King, who has in the past won multiple national motocross titles in all three championship classes, the 125cc, MX2 (250cc) and MX1 (open class) divisions.

King has nothing left to prove in a sparkling career that spans about 40 of his 44 years and wouldn’t it be nice for him to go out with a bang, win just one more national title … or at least finish on the podium?

Nobody should bet against King achieving just that.

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