February 15th, 2012
Chris Power - race report
The Te Puke enduro cross is a favourite on the calendar for me. I had to unfortunately miss out last year with my shoulder surgery so I was all amped up for this years event.
Event: Te Puke Enduro Cross
Bike: 2012 CRF450
Result: 3rd
The Te Puke motorcycle club had done another fantastic job of setting out the track. with about 16 obstacles it turned out to be a really tight course. I raced around the whole thing in first gear. That’s how tight it was. I had geared the CRF450 down by giving the rear sprocket two more teeth – but that was not even close to being enough. I really needed to go down one on the front and up another three or so on the back. As a result I was having to ride the clutch over most of the obstacles while still in first gear. And with the CRF clutch not designed for prolonged periods of slipping she was tough going for me.
I managed to win my heat race ahead of Sean Clarke, and then finished second behind Sean in my second heat. In the semi’s I took it easy to preserve not only my clutch for the final but myself as well as the course was very taxing on the body and especially my clutch hand. The final was 12 minutes long, nearly twice what he had been racing all day. The crowd had gathered and the hooter went. The 450 fired off the line first kick and i started the race in third. I moved into second behind Micthell Nield and was putting some pressure on when the bike stalled. It took a few kicks to get going again and i was about 10 seconds down. I managed to catch back up to the leaders about four laps later and stalled again. After making up another gap we went three from three and stalled again. With one lap to go I could only finish in third for the day. The front three managed to lap all the way up to fifth place with Mitchell taking a solid win.
In reality it was good to find out some of these enduro cross teething problems here rather than at the Red Bull City Scramble, which is what I am working towards, doing lots of log hopping and slow tricky stuff. April 1 will mark the second City Scramble and you should all make a point of getting there and checking it out. Power Racing will be there and Karl should be back to form by then, so We are obviously going for a Honda 1-2 for that event. Thanks again for everyone’s support – it really means a lot.
To the left is a picture of the car obstacle from the weekend as well as a picture of the new bike graphics under the Power Racing tent.
Chris Power #81
Power Racing
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