Woodvile GP

First for Lamont but three in a row for Yamaha at Woodvile GP

By: Andy McGechan

Kayne Lamont is the new champion of New Zealand's most prestigious dirt bike event, the 24-year-old building apprentice simply stunning onlookers when he won the 57th annual New Zealand Motocross Grand Prix at Woodville on Sunday.

Lamont took his Altherm JCR Yamaha Racing Team YZ450F to the front soon after the start of the event's signature race, the invitation feature, and he quickly opened up a solid advantage.

Behind him a battle raged between Australian former Woodville champion Kirk Gibbs and Rhys Carter, but Lamont kept his cool and eventually crossed the finish line a safe 4.4 seconds ahead of Gibbs, with Carter taking the third step on the podium.

“I wasn’t even thinking about the significance of winning this race … I was simply concentrating on not making mistakes,” said Lamont afterwards. It could have been an even more glorious weekend for Lamont, had he not suffered disaster in Sunday's first MX1 class race.

Lamont had qualified fastest – indicating he’d be a serious title contender at the nationals this year – and he was leading the first of Sunday’s three MX1 class races when he crashed and handed the win instead to national MX1 champion Cody Cooper.

“I had a small mishap in a muddy rut. I actually crashed three times in that race,” Lamont explained.

“The bike took ages to get going after I crashed and then I crashed twice more trying to catch up. I simply salvaged what I could from that,” Lamont said, eventually settling for 15th place at the chequered flag.

Following massage treatment in the pits, the battered Lamont managed fourth and fifth in the next two MX1 races, good enough only for seventh overall in the class, but his performance in the feature race would be the key one for the record books.

Lamont was thrilled to join a long and illustrious list of winners of New Zealand's most famous motocross, a list that also includes his team boss, Josh Coppins. Coppins was a rare five-time winner at Woodville – champion there in 1996, 1999, 2000, 2008 and 2011 – before he retired from fulltime racing in 2012, although he has since gone on to taste success several times there in his role as team manager.

Coppins' achievement record at Woodville now extends well beyond his five personal wins, with Lamont's win on Sunday now making it three times in a row that his team's MX1 class rider has secured the Woodville trophy. Australian Dean Ferris won the title for the Altherm JCR Yamaha Team in 2016 and again last year.

Lamont’s victory this year was significant also because he broke the drought ... it had been three years since a Kiwi had last won there.

Cooper won the crown in 2014, but it was Gibbs who took it in 2015 and then fellow Australian Dean Ferris won it the following two years.

Meanwhile, the successes kept piling up for Yamaha at the weekend, with Lamont's Mangakino-based team-mate Maximus Purvis (Yamaha YZ125) winning the 125cc class.

Altherm JCR Yamaha rider Jay Wilson was third overall for the weekend in the MX2 class. Credit Phil Smith - Clmintepix

Australian Jay Wilson from Yamalube Yamaha Racing in Australia, also raced the MX2 class this weekend.

Making his 2018 racing debut in New Zealand, Wilson finished a credible third overall on his Yamaha YZ250F. The first two races he found his racing form again, finishing in third place with Wyatt Chase claiming victory and Hamish Harwood in the runner-up spot, both times.

In the third race, Wilson moved up to second, which pleased team boss Josh Coppins, who says “he got better and better,” as he had more track time.

“This was Jay’s first motocross race since August and we are building back up with him. He was only 4 seconds off the lead in the third race.”

Wilson says that although it would have been nice to take a win this weekend, his focus is battling for the MX2 championship title “and we are well and truly in that fight,” he says

Wilson (23) will compete at all four rounds of the New Zealand Motocross Championships in preparation for his Australian season. He has worked with Altherm JCR Yamaha team manager Josh Coppins for several years previously and in 2015 claimed the MX2 title in both New Zealand and Australia with Coppins’ team.

Whakatane’s Darren Capill (Yamaha YZ450F) won the veterans’ class and Melbourne visitor Maddy Brown (Yamaha YZ250F) winning the women’s class.

Meanwhile, another visiting Australian, Melbourne’s Bailey Malkiewicz, who was sharing the Altherm JCR Yamaha facilities, won the 14-16 years’ 250cc class during junior racing on Saturday.