Motorsport: Davis digs deep to wrap up title

Rory Mead (pictured here at the Red Bull City Scramble in Auckland) was unable to defend his title after he missed an earlier round but did win Saturday's race. Photo / Getty Images

Even bike problems could not prevent Whangamata's Jason Davis from winning the Yamaha New Zealand Enduro Championships at the weekend's fifth and final round near Taupo.

The 21-year-old logger proved to be a consistent performer all season and this was his salvation when his 300cc KTM bike suffered a "cold seizure" early in the day's racing at the Tahorakuri Forest on Saturday.

Davis was remarkably still able to nurse his sick bike home in second spot overall, just ahead of Mokau's Adrian Smith (Yamaha) and his main rival for the outright crown, Auckland's Karl Power (Honda), and that was enough for him to celebrate winning the expert grade outright, his first major New Zealand title. He also took bike category honours by winning the over-200cc two-stroke class.

Winner on Saturday was Yamaha's Rory Mead, of Whitby - the defending national champion - but he was not in contention for championship this season because he had been forced to miss earlier rounds in the series.

"It's my first outright title," smiled Davis afterwards. "I've won my bike class before but never the title outright. This is the big one. When the bike problem came up, I realised I was down on power and needed to ride smart, just bring it home and, hopefully, finish in front of Karl."

And that's exactly as it panned out, with the 25-year-old Power also having a tough day at the office.

"I had already wrapped up my (250cc four-stroke) class title at the previous round but I really needed to win outright today to win the overall and also hope that Jason had an 'off' day," said Power. "I made a few too many mistakes today and crashed in two places. It was just silly stuff really but it cost me valuable time."

Defending champion Mead missed round one at Operau in February because of overseas commitments and crashed while leading at round four near Dannevirke in March.

"I knew I had no hope of retaining my title. Overseas racing is playing a bigger part in my life now, which meant I had to skip round one of the nationals, and then when I hit a tree stump and crashed out of round four (near Dannevirke), I knew I couldn't defend the title," he said.

Other class winners this season were Smith (under-200cc two-stroke), Waihi Beach's Chris Power (over-300cc four-stroke) and New Plymouth's Dougy Herbert (over-40 years' veterans).