Was the terrain particularly vicious at round one of the New Zealand Cross-country Championships at Onga Onga in Central Hawke’s Bay on Saturday or was the rider of this bike just an animal?

We think it could be a bit of both because even the best rubber in the world was not going to withstand the treatment being dished out to it at the weekend.

This is the rear tyre of Adrian Smith’s bike after he won the three-hour race by more than three minutes ahead of fellow Kiwi international Paul Whibley.

Smith told BikesportNZ.com afterwards that he did feel the rear end slipping about halfway into the race and he didn’t want to look down and see what was happening with the knobs getting torn off the tyre.

He just wound the throttle on even more and trusted his skills to handle the loss of traction.

“The Yamaha YZ250FX is a real weapon. It has a six-speed gearbox but I didn’t really click it into sixth until lap two,” he said.

“I was getting up to some pretty scary speeds I have to admit.”

We’re pretty sure the race fans loved it.

© Words and photos by Andy McGechan, www.BikesportNZ.com

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