In eight championship races over four rounds there were just three different race winners this season, but plenty of motorcycle category trophies were still to be decided when the 2022 New Zealand Cross-country Championships finally wrapped up at the weekend.
Remote farmland at Pōrangahau, in Central Hawke's Bay, was the scene on Sunday for the fourth and final round of the 2022 season and, while the two main titles had already been sealed at the previous round near Dannevirke a month earlier, there was still the matter of determining who would take home silverware in the individual bike categories.
Oparau's James Scott (Honda) won each of the three rounds of the Yamaha-sponsored nationals that had already been staged, easily clinching the senior crown overall for this season at round three near Dannevirke last month, with Napier's Tommy Watts (Yamaha) and Taupō's Wil Yeoman (Yamaha) forced to settle for second and third overall positions respectively.
Cambridge's Jared Hannon (Kawasaki) was similarly impressive in wrapping up the junior title on the same day in April, Easter Monday. Like Scott, Hannon had also compiled an unbeaten 1-1-1 score-card from the first three rounds.
But this did not diminish the significance of Pōrangahau's final round on Sunday, with a few more chapters still needing to be written.
It was business as usual for Scott on Sunday, who again won the three-hour senior race, making it an unbeaten string of four wins from four starts for the series.
Runner-up to Scott was Yeoman, with Watts settling for third place on Sunday.
These three riders will remain highly active over the coming weeks as they work to prepare themselves to race, not as rivals, but as teammates, when they tackle the International Six Days Enduro event in France in late August and early September.