KEY POINTS:
Hawera's Daryl Hurley has been so hot this summer that he should probably come with his own fire warning.
There was nothing anybody could do to prevent the Team Suzuki leader from running off with the open class title at the fourth and final round of the New Zealand Supercross Championships, staged under floodlights inside Wanganui's Cooks Gardens arena on Saturday night.
The 32-year-old Kiwi international continued the trend he started at round one in Motueka two months earlier, as he again dominated the night, although he did suffer two defeats on Saturday night, his first two of the series, when Suzuki team-mates Scott Columb and Luke Burkhart each stole away with a win over their senior partner.
Queenstown's Columb won the night's first open-class race, although Hurley finished second in that and then won the next two and Burkhart won the all-capacities feature race that closed the night and the series.
Hurley led a Suzuki 1-2 sweep in the open class, with Columb finishing runner-up and Taupo Kawasaki rider Nick Saunders taking the third step on the podium.
"I crashed while leading the first open class race, overshooting the corner and falling off in the soft dirt. I still managed to pick it up and finish second," said Hurley afterwards. "I started the next race with a 43-point lead but I still needed to finish to take the title. I was annoyed after crashing (in race one), so I went hard in race two and won it easily and that was enough to win the title."
He won the third race as well but came unstuck again in the night's finale, the all-in feature that was not part of the championship, as Burkhart snatched the lead at the start and held it to the chequered flag.
Suzuki also scored a 1-2 result in the Lites (250cc four-stroke) class with Burkhart winning, again with Columb in the No 2 spot, and Hamilton Kawasaki rider Jesse Wiki in third.
Burkhart will now join Hurley in contesting the open class in the Australian Motocross Championships, which kick off in Tasmania on April 6, while Columb returns to his base in Belgium to prepare for the opening round of the World Motocross Championships, in the nearby Netherlands, also on April 6.
In the junior racing at Wanganui, an injured Hamish Dobbyn (Warkworth, Yamaha) rode conservatively to wrap up the 14-16 years 250cc class; Rotorua's John Phillips (Kawasaki) secured the 12-16 years 125cc class; Tauranga's Roydon White (Yamaha) romped to victory in the 13-16 years 85cc class and Feilding's Haki Waller (Kawasaki) again delighted the crowd with his high-flying antics as he comprehensively won the 11-12 years 85cc division.
