It’s a challenge that almost never happened, but Christchurch’s Andy McLaughlin is perhaps now just days away from winning the Lightweight Production class title in the 2017 New Zealand Superbike Championships.

His father, Tony, bought the ex-Dennis Charlett 2016 championship-winning KTM RC390 to ride in BEARS races. He also has another almost standard RC390 and he used the bike to good effect, winning the Lightweight 0-400 class in the BEARS winter series.

His son Andy has a background in bucket racing and has also campaigned an RG150 and a Husqvarna Motard, but Tony McLaughlin decided that he would rather lie on the beach at Kaiteriteri, than ride his KTM in the local nationals round at Ruapuna, the opening round of the 2017 championship series in January.

So Andy took the opportunity to hit his dad up for the loan of the two bikes for Ruapuna and the round two also, at Teretonga, taking the stock bike with him as a spare.

He was hoping to get amongst the front runners, but was just riding for fun.

He couldn’t attend the Friday practice due to his New Zealand Air Force work commitments, so he turned up on Saturday morning and promptly put himself on pole.

He then won the first race of the weekend on Saturday.

Things were starting to get interesting.

He scored a solid runner-up finish in the first race the following day and then won a nail biting victory in the GP race that followed.

This involved a side-by-side battle with Ashburton’s Lewis Dray around the sweeper, ending in Andy having a huge tank slapper on the grass at the start of the straight. Not only did that happen, but he found at the end of the straight that the brake pads had been pushed back and first squeeze gave nothing. He managed to keep it upright and regain the lead. Then on the last lap Dray made a do-or-die attempt round the last corner, but overdid it and speared off into the wall.

There was a cloud of dust and, suddenly, Andy McLaughlin appeared out of the dust and across the line to take the Grand Prix title.

A check of the lap times showed that McLaughlin’s best lap was faster than that which multi-NZ champion Charlett had done at the same meeting last year on the same bike.

Not a bad effort for a club rider out for “a bit of fun”.

With this unexpected glory, Tony McLaughlin  decided to drag himself away from sunny Kaiteriteri, to accompany his son to Teretonga.

There Andy McLaughlin maintained his championship lead, but now Tony had a dilemma. He really wanted his good bike for the Sound of Thunder race meeting which clashed with the Taupo NZSBK round.

That was the original plan, and besides Andy didn’t think he had enough leave available to contest the North Island rounds.

But when there’s a chance at a national championship, what do you do? Andy grovelled to his Air Force bosses, Tony chased the moths out of his wallet and upgraded the number two bike’s suspension for him to use at the Sound of Thunder, and Andy was set for Taupo and Hampton Downs.

Taupo saw Andy McLaughlin take two runner-up finishes (both times behind the day’s outright winner, Upper Hutt rider Rogan Chandler) and also a third, behind Tauranga’s Regan Phibbs, while his main rival for the title, Ashburton’s Sam Goulter, only managed an 8th, a 9th and a 10th, giving Andy McLaughlin a 47.5-point lead going into Hampton Downs this weekend.

It seems highly likely, therefore, that McLaughlin could win the national title at the end of a campaign that almost never happened.

© Words by Morgan Williams

© Photo by Andy McGechan, www.BikesportNZ.com

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