COOPER TOO CLASSY | Bikesportnz

Australia had better watch out … and so, possibly, should the rest of the world.

Mount Maunganui’s Cody Cooper used his mid-series break from racing the Australian Motocross Championships to tackle the annual Battle of the Clubs Motocross in Taupo at the weekend, Saturday’s event a fundraiser to send a three-rider New Zealand team to compete at the Motocross of Nations in Germany in September.

Representing the Tauranga Motorcycle Club, Cooper raced his Moto City Suzuki RM-Z450 as the six-member team’s MX1 category rider, and it perhaps came as a surprise to nobody that he proved unbeatable on the Digger McEwen Motorcycle Park facility, comfortably fending off attacks from Taupo’s former national champion Ben Townley and Rotorua’s former national champion Michael Phillips in the process.

Reigning national MX1 No.1 Cooper won both the combined MX1 and Veterans’ class race and the combined MX1 and MX2 race as well, although it wasn’t quite enough for his club to win the event outright, that honour going instead to the host Taupo Motorcycle Club.

Cooper’s Tauranga team finished the event ranked fifth overall of the 21 clubs entered, but Cooper may still be one of the biggest beneficiaries of the fundraiser.

It seems likely, on current form at least, that Cooper could be an automatic first-choice rider to ride for Team New Zealand in Germany in September. In the past decade, Cooper has been an integral member of Team New Zealand at the Motocross of Nations on six separate occasions.

But before that squad is named, Suzuki’s Cooper has other business to focus on, with the sixth round of 10 in the Australia Motocross Championships just around the corner.

He is in confident mood as he heads to Appin, in New South Wales, for round six in less than a fortnight (July 14), especially with results now starting to click for the 29-year-old.

Cooper won the previous round at Conondale, in Queensland, at the start of June – strengthening his position at fourth overall in the MX1 standings across the Tasman – and he firmly believes momentum is now on his side.

“We have found a really good set-up with the bike and I’m very happy with it,” said Cooper. “It was good to come here (to Taupo) and win my races and now I’ll have another week of hard training at home before I head back to Australia for round six.

“I’m fourth in the standings but there’s not too much in it and I’ll do my best to claw back the points. I’m not concerned with the other riders … I’ll just do my own thing and concentrate on doing what I do … we’ll just see how it works out.

“I hope I do get picked for the Motocross of Nations squad. I have raced at that German track before, although it was a Grand Prix event when I was about 17, so that’s a long time ago.”

The Motocross of Nations is regarded as the “Olympic Games of motocross” and Cooper was a member of the Kiwi team that finished fourth in France in 2005 and third in England in 2006. Team New Zealand finished 15th overall in the deep sand of Belgium last season.

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