South Island enduro riders took to the rugged hills of Pig Valley, near Nelson, over the weekend for the fourth and final round of the 2014 Beta South Island Enduro Championships.

With all the usual diehards showing their faces along with some fresh blood to spice things up and the weather gods giving the rugged nelson hill country the big thumbs up, it was shaping up to be a great day of racing.

Riders were treated with three different trail loops, the first of which was a flowing scenic farmland circuit, littered with rocks. Loop two consisted of a mix of flowing farmland and pine forest with an enduro style special test, providing a mixture of tight forest trails and flowing farm tracks.

Loop three saw riders tackling a mixture of technical forestry sections and flowing forestry tracks.

A flowing natural terrain motocross style special test situated near the car park, saw riders and spectators alike grinning from ear to ear as the riders tackled the natural jumps and flowing corners.

After a five and a half hour stint on the saddle, it was the newly crowned national cross country nationals runner-up, Maruia’s Ethan Bruce (Yamaha YZ250), who easily took his Yamaha to both the outright and over-200cc two-stroke class win for the day.

Local rider Kim Davies (Honda CRF450R) took a very distant second position outright with Christchurch’s Jacques Bakkenes (Beta RR250) taking the final podium spot for the day.

This changed very little for series leader Christchurch’s Hamish Macdonald (Beta RR300) who had already sewn up the outright crown, even with a no show at nelson due to a broken wrist sustained in a training crash.

This left Bakkenes to take the number two position with a very close fight for the number three spot eventually going to Alexndra’s Logan Forsyth (KTM 450XC).

A big thanks to Beta Motorcycles New Zealand, Precision Motorbikes, Golden Tyres, KiwiRider magazine, XRC and Fume for their support for the series as well as all of the clubs for running such awesome events for everyone to enjoy.

© Words by Steven Kelly, www.BikesportNZ.com

© Video by Angus Macdonald, MCD Edits

© Photo by Andy McGechan, www.BikesportNZ.com

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