New Zealanders are branching out this season like never before …

With a contingent racing in the Australian motocross nationals this season, Motueka’s Josh Coppins continuing in his hunt for the elusive MX1 motocross world title in Europe, Bay of Plenty pair Mason Phillips and Rhys Carter giving it a go in Canada and Tauranga’s Ben Townley taking on the Americans in their national motocross series, you could be forgiven for overlooking the young Kiwi who is taking on Europe’s best 125cc motocross youngsters.

Mangakino’s Kayne Lamont, who raced to two titles at the New Motocross Junior Championships near Blenheim in April, is racing a Suzuki RM125 in the EMX125 championships this season.

Lamont, sponsored by MotoGB in Tauranga and also by BikesportNZ.com, made his EMX125 debut just over a week ago, at the French GP at St Jean D’Angely.

The 16-year-old qualified a remarkable 12th in his group but then things went a little haywire.

Lamont contacted BikesportNZ.com to give us this run-down from his experiences in Europe … travelling with his father, Stu, and uncle, Phil:

“We went to pick up our camper in Wales on Wednesday morning and were due to pick up the trailer and catch the 7pm ferry in Dover but those plans changed as it took all day to organise insurance for the camper, so we missed our 7pm ferry and managed to get on the midnight one.

“We arrived in France just after 1am and our Navman was playing up but we managed to find a truck park to park in and have a sleep at about 2am.  We woke around 8am and headed for St Jean d’Angely, about seven hours’ drive away. Unfortunately our Navman took us on a scenic route towards the coast and arrived at St Jean around 9.30pm. The only food place open was McDonald’s so, unfortunately, that was dinner and we ended up staying the night in the car park.

“After stocking up on food, etc, and washing the camper we headed for the track the next day (Friday).

“The pits were very full and we were located at the far end of them. Once we had set up we caught up with Josh and checked out the pit trucks and track.  The track here is set on the side of a hill with the track going up and down several times and had a rhythm section along the top before dropping back down towards the start.

“We also caught up with Mark from FOX Europe who dropped some new FOX gear, he had also supplied more gear than we thought we were getting.”

Lamont’s graphics hadn’t turned up so he had to make backgrounds and numbers before going through technical control. The bike went through noise testing okay and then Lamont’s helmet had to be checked (which caused some grief, as it didn’t have the correct numbers sewn into the straps).

“It’s quite hard to understand them and the only word I could recognise was ‘suspect’, which they repeated several times but finally let it through.

“On Saturday we could see the track was in good condition but was very rocky and I was due out for practice at 08.30am.

“This got cancelled because the track was not ready and now practice would be combined with the qualifying heat, with practice being the first 10 mins and qualifying for the last 15 mins.

“The temperature had increased to approx 32 degrees (extremely hot); practice went reasonably well but in the qualifying sessions I was certainly feeling the heat and struggled a bit. The times from this gave riders the gate pick for the qualifying race later that day, which was due to start at about 6pm.”

Stu takes up the story from here:

“Kayne got a bad start and was second to last around the holeshot corner but made his way through the pack to 12th, which we all were very happy with.  He showed good race pace, although he was the only one riding a stock standard bike.

“Once the placings were combined, Kayne had qualified in 24th place.

“After qualifying I run into Jeremy Long (from the Hawke’s Bay) and had a good catch up. He could not believe that Kayne was riding over here on a stock bike and that he qualified, so he organised for me to meet with Patrick who used to work for Suzuki factory team and he would look at modifying Kayne’s engine.

“In Sunday there were thunderstorms. It rained heavily during the night and the track was extremely boggy and Kayne was first practice and then first race after the practice sessions. By the time it was the first race the track was in a bad state with long deep ruts and still a lot of mud everywhere.

“Kayne had another bad start and on the hill after the holeshot corner there were bikes down everywhere and if you had to go off the single line you had trouble to get up the hills.

“Kayne went down after sliding out on a double jump and ended up in the fence, he lost a couple of laps, when he got back to pit row his front wheel was locked solid with mud and could not get enough speed to clear the mud and he only managed one more lap before his dnf.

“Race two was at 6pm and the track had dried out substantially. Kayne got a reasonable start, 9th around the holeshot corner, but was passed up the hill.

“He stayed in a comfortable 10th place for a couple of laps until he got a flat rear tyre when he had to retire.

“The positives from this weekend were that firstly he qualified 24th with the best in the world and secondly he showed he had the pace to stay in the top 10 and all this on a stock bike.

“He will have his modified engine for the next round in Germany (next weekend) and we are looking forward to that.  We have learned from the first round and should be better prepared for the next one.

We left the track late Sunday evening and headed for Josh Coppins’ place in Belgium and around 10pm got pulled over by the French police (that was an interesting conversation as they could not speak English) and they ended up fining us 68 Euro for having no tail lights and we couldn’t leave until we had fixed them.

“So, on the side of the road we had pulled all the lighting out and temporarily wired lights to the trailer leaving there around midnight to find a road side truck park. The next morning we left and got to Josh’s around 5pm on Monday.

“For the last couple of days we have spent training in the sand with Josh at Honda Park. We struggled with Kayne’s bike set-up on the first day but Josh’s practice bike mechanic helped sort it out and Kayne is looking a lot better.”

The next event for Lamont is the fourth round of seven in the EMX125 championships, set for Teuchenthal, Germany, this coming weekend.

© Photo by Andy McGechan, www.BikesportNZ.com