Whakatane father and son team Tony and Damon Rees are both celebrating after success at the New Zealand Superbike Championships.
Tony leads the Superbike class after the second of four rounds of the national competition, in Invercargill at the weekend, while rising young star Damon is locked in a tight battle for top honours in the 600cc class.
Tony started second in the championship standing on Saturday, 10 points behind defending national superbike champion Sloan Frost, but after two race wins and a runner-up finish, behind fellow Honda rider Alastair Hoogenboezem, propelled Tony past Wellington's Frost and into the series lead.
Tony is 18 points ahead of Christchurch's Hoogenboezem, with Frost slipping back to third in the standings after a disastrous weekend, crashing out of one race.
But the new championship leader had not originally intended to contest the nationals this year.
"I simply wanted to be at the nationals to support my boys [Damon, 21, Mitch, 23,] and I wasn't going to race at all. But I had a change of mind when my sons offered to relieve me of mechanic's duties if I would race alongside them. So here I am and it's turning out to be a great season for us all," he said.
Mitch [Honda CBR1000RR] is currently running sixth overall in the same Superbike class as his father.
Elsewhere, sharing the track with the Superbike riders, Invercargill Honda rider Jeremy Holmes is still the runaway leader in the battle-within-a-battle for 1000cc Superstock class honours, now 96 points ahead of his nearest challenger, Te Kauwhata's Chris Defiori.
Meanwhile Damon had led the 600cc supersport class after the opening round of the nationals in Christchurch a week earlier and he followed that up by setting a scorching time to top qualifying at Teretonga.
But a crash and subsequent non-finish in his first race wiped out his points lead.
The talented rider fought back in the next two outings, but still finished the weekend 26.5 points behind new class leader Shane Richardson, of Wainuiomata.
But there's no reason to be waving the white flag just yet - with five points the difference between a win and a runner-up finish, and still six 600cc class races left in the series [three more races at each of the remaining two rounds], meaning that 26.5-point gap could quickly be overcome.
The Rees' father and son double act will now look to push on with their winning momentum when the second half of the season gets underway in Taupo next month.
