KING OF THE ‘CROSS | Bikesportnz

The stars of motocross will be lining up in Taranaki this Sunday to find out who will be the King of the Mountain for 2016.

With major national titles on the line in the coming weeks, the annual King of the Mountain (KoM) motocross in Taranaki again becomes a litmus test to see who has the acid to win when the New Zealand Motocross Grand Prix at Woodville lights up just a week later and when the four-round national championships series kicks off in Timaru only seven days after that.

The main contenders to win the senior races at the Barrett Road Motorcycle Park, on the outskirts of New Plymouth, on Sunday are again expected to come from the country’s elite MX1 (450cc) class riders.

Racing on this challenging circuit in the shadow of Mount Taranaki is always fierce and this weekend will be no exception with some heavyweight hitters among those entered.

Taupo’s Brad Groombridge is a two-time KoM winner, winning in the mud in 2012 and again in 2014, but Queenstown’s Scott Columb was the main man last season, taking the key trophy ahead of Waitakere’s Ethan Martens and Mount Maunganui’s Rhys Carter.

Kiwi international and reigning national No.1 in the MX1 class, Mount Maunganui’s Cody Cooper looms as likely favourite to win this time around, although he will have his work cut out facing fellow Kiwi internationals Kayne Lamont, from Mangakino, and Courtney Duncan, from Palmerston, in Otago.

Former national MX2 champion Lamont will be on the smaller 250cc bike, but he has a fondness for the Barrett Road circuit and could be expected to hound Cooper.

The appearance of 19-year-old Duncan in Taranaki this weekend should be worth the entry fee alone as she hits top form in her preparation to race overseas in 2016.

Duncan has dominated the women’s branch of the sport over the past decade, and beaten most of the young men too, in New Zealand, Australia and the United States, and she is about to embark on the realisation of a lifelong dream to race the world championships, starting in Qatar on February 28.

A full season is not guaranteed for Duncan and she needs to impress at Qatar to ensure continued backing, perhaps even from full factory level.

She has the backing anyway of New Zealand’s two-time former world No.2 Josh Coppins, of Motueka, the head of the Altherm JCR Yamaha Racing Team. She has been training regularly with him as she builds towards her world championship campaign and the KoM event is a part of that.

For most of last year she was in recovery mode, regaining her strength after tearing her ACL ligament in her left knee – in a freak basketball accident, totally unrelated to motocross.

She is now back to full fitness and her coach and mentor, Coppins, is quietly confident that she will impress in Qatar.

“Courtney is only officially confirmed for Qatar at this stage,” he said. “It’s quite an expensive undertaking to do a full campaign and she’s not got a factory ride. She needs to show what she’s made of at Qatar and we can go on from there.

“We in New Zealand know how good she is, but you’re only as good as your last ride and nobody has seen her overseas for a while.”

Meanwhile, Inglewood pair Larry Blair and Braeden Christian, Hawera’s Daryl Hurley, Opunake’s Liam Read and Stratford’s Sam Cleland are among the local riders with a good chance also of featuring on Sunday.

For the nation’s motocross elite, the early weeks of summer can mean only one thing – lots of hard work. This is the time of year when national title contenders should start to see their weeks of training and testing begin to bear fruit, while, for others, lazy habits over winter may be starting to bite.

Questions are therefore now being asked – Who has prepared best? Who is strongest? Who is fastest? Who will rate among the favourites for a national or international title in 2016?

Perhaps those questions, and others, will be answered when the start gates drop at the KOM on Sunday.

Find BikesportNZ.com on FACEBOOK here

Comments are closed.