Tauranga's Ben Townley, 31, announced his return to the Kiwi dirtbike scene in the most emphatic fashion on Thursday evening, as he took three wins from three starts at the New Zealand Supercross Championships at Winton, near Invercargill.
After an up-and-down season of racing the Motocross World Championships earlier this year, former motocross world champion and former United States supercross champion Townley has returned from Europe with his wife and young family to settle back in New Zealand.
He obviously still has an itchy throttle hand and was keen to tackle the Brent Scammell Honda-sponsored event, an integral part of the week-long Burt Munro Challenge festival of motorcycling.
With a Suzuki RM-Z450 on loan to him from Winton Motorcycles, Townley celebrated a hat-trick of wins in the premier grade, the senior open class, humbling Mount Maunganui's national MX1 motocross champion Cody Cooper, Motueka's fellow former GP star Josh Coppins and Mount Maunganui's Rhys Carter in the process.
Townley said he would be "riding only selected events" this season as he settles back into the domestic scene, but he showed he's still got the pace to win at the top level of the sport here.