Wednesday, 12 March, 2014 By Andy McGechan, www.BikesportNZ.com
Raglan’s Jason Dickey could be the big mover on the cross-country motorcycling scene this season.
The 19-year-old Kawasaki ace certainly has momentum on his side after he blasted his way to victory at the fourth and final round of the Bel Ray Cross-Country Series at Glen Murray, north of Huntly, on Sunday.
National cross-country champion Adrian Smith, from Mokau, snatched the lead soon after the shotgun blast signalled the start to Sunday’s two-hour gut-buster, while eventual winner Dickey was lost in traffic.
“I was in about 20th position after the start,” said Dickey, who works as a dairy farm manager at Raglan.
“But I had caught up to the leaders after about two kilometres, even though it was pretty dusty.
“I managed to pass Adrian and pulled a bit of a gap. He withdrew from the race soon after that and I think that was because he’d injured his wrist the day before when he’d raced the enduro nationals (near Wellington).
“That means I didn’t really have anyone to challenge me. Taumarunui’s Adam Blackburn, Rotorua’s Scott Birch and Hamilton’s Andrew Charleston were behind me at that stage but I just put my head down and built a bit of a gap on them.
“I was soon a minute or so ahead of them and then just kept putting more distance between them and me,” said Dickey, who eventually crossed the finish line three and a half minutes ahead of Birch, with Hamilton’s Sam Brown in third spot, 10 minutes further back.
“I didn’t have any problems and, in the end, I had just enough gas left to finish without having to make a pit stop. I had a 10.5 litre after-market aluminium tank fitted.”
Unfortunately for Dickey, although he won the battle, he lost the war, with Smith having already wrapped up the series at the previous round, but now the focus goes on the upcoming national championships with the second round of that four-round series set for Huntly this Saturday.
However, if momentum favours Dickey and Smith is still hampered by his recent thumb injury, it could be a very interesting tussle on Saturday and few would bet against Dickey and his Kawasaki KX250F being somewhere near the front of that.
Meanwhile, Te Kuiti’s Sean Kelly took his Kawasaki KX125 to finish runner-up in the 90-minute junior race on Sunday, crossing the line just 42 seconds behind Otorohanga’s Aaron King, but that was the only “glitch” to Kelly’s campaign.
Kelly had already won the junior section of the series and his final score-line was an impressive 1-1-1-2 for the four rounds.