Punctures played a big part in the Woodhill Two Man cross country race at the weekend.

This is what caused havoc for numerous teams during the weekend’s first round of the Woodhill Two Man cross-country race series, the competition sponsored by Spectrum Motorcycles.

Those affected included early challengers Jono Hill and Logan Beuth who had the misfortune to get two with solo rider Cam Smith from Marton another to suffer the same fate.

The cause for so many flats seemed to come from riders running lower pressures than normal and as a result the tubes were blowing on the impact with tree roots. No doubt that will be a lesson to be learned for the next round at the end of August.

Another interesting snippet noticed was the mentoring that took place within most teams. Well done to the more experienced riders who partnered up with the next generation of racers whom are mostly still at school. The youngsters thrived off the experienced and two of them ended up top of the points.

The racing was in fact very close for most of the day with multiple lead changes for the first two hours anyway. James Ainsworth set the early pace with a handy 30 second lead on the first lap over the chasing bunch of Callan May, Joshua Jack, Shaun Fogarty, Sam Greenslade (pictured here) and Logan Beuth.

However a mechanical hiccup to Ainsworth’s partner, Chris Power, saw them drop 9 minutes at the two-hour mark to leave last year’s champions in fourth place in the teams’ section when the chequered flag came out.

Meanwhile, Joshua Jack and young Luke Moberley peeled off consistent lap times 20 seconds faster than the following pack to eventually win by just over three minutes from team Fogarty and Aiden Kiff with team May and partner Mitchell Nield coming home in third.

As mentioned earlier on BikesportNZ.com in an earlier article, the solo racing was just as intense and to have the cream of the ironmen travelling from around the country to attend was the talk of the pits throughout the day. Adrian Smith’s 60-second win from 11th grid over Adam Reeves was well planned and it will be exciting to see these two, plus the third solo class place-getter, Sam Brown, starting together from the front row of the solo grid for round two.

Other class winners were Natasha Cairns and Mike Davis taking out the mixed class from Phoebe Hill and Taylor Grey and the pairing of Dean McCormack/Roger Russell holding off Jon Refoy and Mark Gray for line honours in the Vets’ section.

As predicted by BikesportNZ.com, the Taupo pairing of expert riders, Mark and Greg De Lautour eked out a win from Nathan and John Sharland with Husqvarna racers Craig and James Brown coming home third in the father/son class.

Kim Berg and Allen Davis took out the clubmen’s class and the pairing of Jake Kryhicki and Luther Mitchell-Quinell squeaked home from Justin Irwin and Jacob Howie McLeod in the Novices.

Earlier in the day, the Juniors and Novice ladies raced for two hours over a completely different course that held up extremely well. The racing was frenetic and the riding skills displayed was of the highest quality.

The Waikato pairing of James Scott and Daniel White triumphed from Emma Walling who brilliantly rode solo for the whole two hours to finish runner-up.

Round two of this series is on Sunday, August 25.

© Photo by Andy McGechan, www.BikesportNZ.com