AN EXPLOSIVE AFFAIR | Bikesportnz

The New Zealand Cross-country Championships are expected to be an explosive affair again this season.

The four-round series kicks off in the Taranaki region this Sunday, February 16, although last year’s two top riders have already lit the fuse on what many expect will be another season of motorcycling fireworks in 2014.

Mokau’s national No.1 Adrian Smith is one rider who is certainly among the favoured few to win the nationals again this year, having made it three wins from three starts to complete a successful title defence of the parallel Bel Ray Cross-country Championships series at the weekend, while Raglan’s national No.2 Jason Dickey has also impressed in pre-nationals competition, having won the stand-alone Raglan Rocx cross-country race last month.

The 27-year-old Smith dominated the Bel Ray series last season and he wrapped it up for 2014 with a round to spare when he won round three near Cambridge at the weekend.

Smith took his Blackwood BikesportNZ.com Yamaha YZ250 to win the dusty Bel Ray series opener near Huntly in December, leading home arch rival Dickey, and it was a virtual carbon copy of that with his win at round two at Waikaretu, near Huntly, earlier this month and he then repeated the feat when he led home Dickey at Cambridge on Sunday.

Points are counted from only three of the four rounds and that means the three-time former and current national champion – whose week-time job is as a sheep and beef farmer in the Awakino Gorge – already has the title in the bag for 2014.

Smith leads 19-year-old Dickey (Kawasaki KX250F), Hamilton’s Andrew Charleston (Honda CRF250) (pictured above), Rotorua’s Scott Birch (Honda CRF250) and Morrinsville’s Nathan Tesselaar (KTM 350 XCF) in the Bel Ray series, with one round to go, and it will possibly be these same riders who will challenge Smith for the national crown starting this weekend.

Smith leads 19-year-old Dickey (Kawasaki KX250F), Hamilton’s Andrew Charleston (Honda CRF250), Rotorua’s Scott Birch (Honda CRF250) and Morrinsville’s Nathan Tesselaar (KTM 350 XCF) in the Bel Ray series, with one round to go, and it will possibly be these same riders who will challenge Smith for the national crown starting this weekend.

Title hopefuls should also be on the look-out for riders such as Maruia’s Ethan Bruce (Yamaha), Woodville’s Ben Exeter (KTM), Pukekawa’s Anthony Parker (KTM), Morrinsville’s Simon Lansdaal (Husqvarna) and, returning to action this season, three-time former national cross country champion Adam Reeves (Yamaha), of Palmerston North.

Former junior hotshots such as Hamilton’s Taylor Rae and Eketahuna’s Charlie Richardson should also be respected.

Sunday’s venue for the Energy Honda-sponsored round one is at 3403 Tarata Road, Purangi, on farmland inland between Inglewood and Stratford.

Rounds two, three and four of the national series will be held respectively in Huntly (on Saturday, March 15), Westland (Sunday, April 13) and Marlborough (Saturday, May 17).

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