Motorsport: Great results for Frost and team

The Tauranga-based M1 Motorsport team and rider Sloan Frost have achieved another podium finish in the New Zealand Superbike Championship which finished at Taupo on Sunday.

Frost, who currently lives and works in Wellington, completed the five-round national championship with third and fifth placings at Taupo aboard the BMW S1000RR machine to finish behind Suzuki's Robbie Bugden (Australia) and defending champ Andrew Stroud (Hamilton) in the title race.

The M1 Motorsport teamed is owned and managed by Tauranga's Robert Ramshaw and the third placing repeats Frost's result from last season as the former motocross racer continues to emerge as a threat to the established front-runners in superbike racing.

"The competition was a lot tougher this year. I feel better about the third place this year than last year and I'm determined to go out next year and put number one on the bike," said Frost.

"We've proved at times we can beat the other guys but we have to do it on a consistent basis. We'll work hard over the winter to develop a winning package for next season."

Bugden convincingly won both races at Taupo and reset the track record at 1m 28.551s in the opening 15-lapper while Suzuki's Craig Shirriffs (Feilding) posted two second placings and climbed to fifth in the championship.

Frost qualified fifth on Saturday and after a slow start from the second row of the grid worked his way past James Smith (Suzuki), Australian Dan Stauffer (Yamaha) and Hamilton's Nick Cole (Kawasaki) to finish third.

Another slow start put Frost back in the pack and raced through to fifth - good enough to remain four points ahead of Cole in the final standings.

"Andrew Stroud was just in front of me and I knew I had to be five places ahead of him to get to second in the championship. I just had to manage my championship position and stay as close to Nick Cole as I could," said Frost.

The Napier-based Pacific Motorcycle Club organised the Taupo national round - the first time the track has hosted a national championship round since the late-1970s on the old chip-surface club circuit. The full 3.32km circuit proved to be a good challenge for the bikes.

"The big track is cool to ride but I was having to work hard," said Frost. "We had changed some things on the bike before the meeting and it wasn't quite right. I was about half a second a lap slower than I'd been at a club day a few weeks earlier."

Katikati's Rhys Holmes rode a BMW S1000RR to 13th overall in the Superbike title although he crashed out of the final race at Taupo and also finished 11th in the Supersport championship riding a Yamaha R6.

Four for Australia

Four Bay of Plenty riders will compete at the opening round of the Australian Motocross Nationals in Queensland this Sunday.

The 10-round Australian series opens at Conondale with newly-crowned New Zealand MX1 champion Ben Townley (Tauranga) in action along with Suzuki star Cody Cooper (Papamoa) and Honda rider Michael Phillips (Rotorua).

For Townley Australia had been his next destination for 2012 with the Carlton Dry Honda Thor Racing team.

But the Conondale round and possibly round two at Coonabaraban, NSW a fortnight later are now expected to be Townley's only Aussie outings this year before heading to the US to ride for the Two Two Motorsport team as replacement for the injured Chad Reed in the AMA Motocross Nationals which start in California on May 19.

In the under-19 category Rotorua's John Phillips - the younger brother of Michael who recovered from injury to show front-running MX2 pace in the later part of the NZ Nationals - will also race in Australia.

A brief sprint

Brent McClymont thinks his saloon car will feel slow at Baypark Speedway this weekend after getting a first taste of a sprint car last Saturday night. McClymont was offered the chance to drive a car from Colin Entwisle's Bayspeed stable, completing one race before rain washed out the meeting. The smooth driving skills that have taken McClymont to two New Zealand saloon car titles transferred easily to an open wheel car.

With Super Stocks as an invitation class the saloon cars had a stand down at Baypark last weekend but, rather than watch, McClymont took the chance to sample a sprint car.

"I was at Colin's last week and casually said 'who's driving that car this weekend?' and he said nobody. So I talked to my sponsors and we jumped at the chance. It was a good night to try one with only nine cars. I'm not sure I'd want to be out there with 20 cars the first time."

Apart from one night several years ago in a super saloon - which wouldn't get into gear - McClymont has only raced in the saloon car class.

A saloon car weighs about 1100kg and has about 500bhp while a sprint car is about 600kg and has in the region of 800bhp.

"The power-to-weight ratio is crazy. You're out of one corner and straight into the next one. I knew they were good but you don't realise how good until you try it."

McClymont started from the back of the field and kept two pieces of advice in mind.

"I was told to be smooth on the throttle and to hold my line. I didn't want to get in anyone's way.

"I passed Keaton Dahm and he passed me back and I was racing with Shay Oliver for a while.

"The only problem I had was a pulled all my tear-offs at once.

"With the full containment seat I didn't have same room as I do in the saloon and when I went to pull a tear-off I got all of them and they flapped around for a few laps."

So is a switch of class on the horizon for Baypark's best saloon car racer?

"It definitely got my attention," said McClymont.

"It's something I'd love to do if there was a good opportunity."

Crew racing north

The Ford Fiesta crew of Phil Campbell and Venita Fabbro are the sole Tauranga entry in the Brother International Rally of Whangarei this weekend.

The opening round of the New Zealand Rally Championship will see Campbell looking to capitalise on two years of experience at national level to start to his attack on the Group N two-wheel drive title.

Rally Whangarei also doubles as the opening round of the Asia-Pacific Rally Championship, so the battle for top two-wheel drive will include New Caledonian veteran Jean-Louis Leyraud in an R3T-spec Citroen and former APRC and Production World Rally Champion Karamjit Singh in a Proton Satria.

"I can't wait to get under way at Whangarei, it's a great event on awesome, fast roads," said Campbell.

"We learnt a lot last year and got quicker at every round, then did the national hillclimb champs over summer and that felt good, so hopefully we will be on the case right from the opening stage."

Rally Whangarei gets under way with a ceremonial start on Friday evening with the action getting under way the following day.

Eight special stages will make up day one with a total of 160km of special stages south of Whangarei.

Tauranga hostingThe Tauranga Motorcycle Club is hosting the third and fourth rounds of the North Island Moto Trials Championship next month.

The April 14-15 double-header will see Saturday's competition at Wharry Rd just north of Waihi with Sunday's riding at Meredith's property in No. 4 Rd, Te Puke.

Expert, A-Grade, Intermediate, President, Clubman, Twin Shock and Junior classes will be contested.

Wellington-based five-time national champion Jake Whitaker won the opening two rounds of the series in Taranaki in late February ahead of Karl Clark (Motueka) and defending champ Matt Foster (Taranaki). The North Island Champs are contested over eight rounds with Wellington hosting rounds five and six on July 7-8 and final days in Hawke's Bay on August 25-26.