Taupo motocross rider Ben Townley took a giant step towards joining the sport's elite by winning the 125cc Swedish Grand Prix at Uddevalla, near Gothenberg yesterday.
The 17-year-old's debut win came in only his second year on the world championship circuit. It was his fourth podium finish in eight events this
season.
"I've been working towards winning a grand prix and it feels so great," Townley said. "I'm hungry for more wins now. I need to be consistent and keep scoring points in the championship."
Less than two years out of school and widely tipped as an emerging world champion, he showed yesterday why he has already been handed a contract to ride for the strong KTM factory team.
Townley blew away KTM's top 125cc rider, Steve Ramon, of Belgium, in the final laps of the rugged, 40-minute event.
"I got a shocking start, I think I was about 15th into the first corner," he said.
"The first lap or two were pretty torrid, but then it was just a matter of picking off the top four or five riders one by one. Then I sat a distance behind Steve for a long time until he started to tire towards the end.
"He made a mistake and I was able to close up, then I saw my chance and got by."
Townley powered away to win the grand prix comfortably and set out on a victory lap with a New Zealand flag handed over by an ecstatic trackside fan.
Ramon was second, ahead of former world champion Alex Puzar, of Italy.
Townley's win, the first by a New Zealander at a grand prix since Darryll King in Switzerland in April 1998, complemented the runner-up spot taken in yesterday's 250cc grand prix by his mentor Josh Coppins, of Motueka.
Coppins is still awaiting a date for a hearing with the sport's governing body over a pseudoephedrine doping charge which Coppins has claimed came from taking a hay fever tablet.
The maximum 25 points propels Townley to 122 points in the hunt for the title with four rounds remaining. That has him in sixth spot, 21 points behind leader Mickael Maschio, who was fourth yesterday.
The world championship season now takes a month off, but Townley will ride in a Dutch national event this weekend.
