Former champs cruise to win

Kaikohe's Mitchell Nield (Yamaha) on his way to helping win a two-man tag-team styled motocross event in Whangarei earlier this month. Photo/ Supplied

A runaway win is what eventuated after two former national champions together teamed up at the recent Whangarei Two-Man Three-Hour event.

Bay of Islands builder Mitchell Nield paired up with Titirangi electrician Callan May at the weekend and, between them, they produced plenty of sparks to hammer their way to victory at round two of the Whangarei Two-Man Three-Hour cross-country series.

The two former national enduro champions each rode their Yamaha YZ250X bikes, tag-teaming one another to eventually take the win by six minutes over round one's winning pair from Whangarei, Scott Hawkins and Jack Robinson.

"We weren't able to race at round one because that was just after Christmas and Callan had only just arrived back in New Zealand after his season of racing in the United States," explained Nield.

"So that means we'll really have our work cut out to win the series now. There are only two more rounds to go in the Whangarei Two-Man Three-Hour series. But this series is not the main thing for either Callan or I... it's the New Zealand Enduro Championships coming up that matter most and this event was a great build-up for that."

Round three of the Whangarei series is set for February 28, with the final round on March 19.

"The course at Whangarei was pretty technical, slick and very greasy," said Nield.

"There was a lot of carnage at the start but we managed to avoid that and were running in second place by the end of lap one. We took over the lead during the rider change-over in the pits.

"After that there was no looking back. We pulled away each lap after that, the gap back to Hawkins and Robinson growing all the time.

"It was nice to get the win and there is still a slim chance of us winning this series, although we may need a little bit of luck after skipping round one."