The popularity of dirt bike events run by Sean Clarke and the Forestland Motorcycle Club continues to impress and this is despite the torturous course the racers were warned to expect.
A double-header weekend, it was the first round of four in the National Club Enduro Series (NCES) on Saturday, perhaps an ideal warm-up ahead of the more extreme No Way In Hell (NWIH) event at the same Waikato venue the following day.
A total of 189 riders showed up to compete at the NCES on Saturday and nearly 170 riders were brave enough to ride the gruelling NWIH event the following day.
Run on steep and rugged farmland at Oparau, about halfway between Kawhia and Otorohanga, the two days sorely tested even the most elite of New Zealand’s off-road motorcycle riders.
Rotorua’s Callum Dudson (Yamaha) won the opening round of the NCES on Saturday, leading home Oparau’s Hunter Scott (Yamaha), New Plymouth’s Sam Parker (Husqvarna), New Plymouth’s Blake Lusk (Yamaha) and Auckland’s Riley Cargill (Triumph).
Taupo’s Will Yeoman took his KTM bike to win the annual NWIH extreme enduro the following day.
The 2023 New Zealand cross-country champion completed the course in under three hours, an incredible feat with a five-hour cut-off imposed on the race duration.
Yeoman finished just over 14 minutes ahead of the runner-up rider, Masterton’s Max Williams (KTM), while Lower Hutt’s Jake Whitaker (KTM) finished third, nine minutes further back.
Rotorua’s Bradley Lauder (GASGAS) and New Plymouth’s Luke Thompson (Husqvarna) rounded out the NWIH top five.
Yeoman, a 20-year-old auto electrician, explained he had set himself up well for the race when he won the prologue sprint race earlier in the day, thereby earning a prime position on the start line.
“I had Sam Parker for company early on in the race, but I wasn’t too concerned and just rode smoothly,” Yeoman said. “I was in the lead when we hit the hard stuff.
“I managed to settle into a quick pace and finished with a solid margin in the end. I didn’t realise I had that much of a lead.”
It was only the eighth time that the NWIH extreme enduro had been run and, quite frankly, that’s quite a surprise because so few riders survived the inaugural event in 2010.
In fact, only two out of more than 60 starters did finish that first race 16 years ago and that’s also probably part of the reason why there was something of a hiatus after 2014 and the resurrection of the NWIH event in 2024 had been so eagerly anticipated.
“The Forestland MCC workers did a great job of setting all this up and marking out the course,” said event organiser Clarke, himself a former international racer.
“The NCES course covered about 100km of high-country farmland, with some nice native bush sections thrown in to spice it up.
“The NWIH was a case of survival of the fittest, with a five-hour cut-off time to make sure we could still rescue stragglers before it got too dark. The race started out relatively easy and progressively got more difficult as the race wore on.”
Yeoman also won the NWIH event last year, finishing just ahead of Thames rider Chris Birch and Taranaki’s Parker.
The weekend was sponsored by Husqvarna motorcycles, Forbes and Davies accessory distributors, O’Neal apparel, Maxima oils, Arai helmets, Ogio bags, Blur, Maxi Grip, Kiwi Rider magazine, Muc-Off, Metzeler tyres, USWE and SATCO logging attachments.
© Words and photo by Andy McGechan, www.BikesportNZ.com
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