As it has so often in the past, Saturday‰Ûªs annual Hawke‰Ûªs Bay Six-Hour Dirt Bike Challenge in New Zealand went down to the very last lap before a winner could be decided.
A gruelling see-saw battle on the forest course near Raupunga, about 100 kilometres north of Napier, the Suzuki-sponsored event went right down to the wire.
Honda pair Chris Power (Hamilton) and Adrian Smith (Awakino) had been more than two minutes in front of their nearest challengers as they started their eighth and final lap in the forest, the riders forced to complete one last circulation of the rutted course because their seventh lap ended just before the event clock had struck the six hour mark ‰ÛÒ making the actual race duration actually closer to six-and-a-half hours of body-battering torture.
But the Honda men had not counted on the dogged determination of the Kawasaki pair of Michael Phillips (Rotorua) and co-rider Joel Byrne (Whakatane), who embarked on an incredible last-lap bid for the win.
With Rotorua motocross ace Phillips in control of the Kawasaki KX250 and showing the same sort of form that carried him to a podium finish at the opening round of the motocross nationals near Timaru just a week earlier, Power had no answer and surrendered the lead.
‰ÛÏWe only really entered this race on a whim. We weren‰Ûªt thing it too seriously,‰Û
