Aussie streaks to street victory

The road code was thrown out the window on the streets of Paeroa on Sunday.
Hundreds of motorcyclists flooded into the small town, at the foot of the Coromandel Peninsula, with the sole intention of flouting the nation's road laws, racing at speeds of more than 270km/h down Paeroa's main street, ignoring stop signals, failing to give way and swerving across the centre lines at every opportunity.
And, although the main speeding offender has been named - Australian visitor Dan Stauffer (Yamaha) - police turned a blind eye, as they have done for the past 20 years for the famous Battle of the Streets event.
Thousands of spectators enjoyed the sporting occasion under a typically blazing sky for this year's Mobil 1-sponsored event, which ran like clockwork from the 7.30am riders' briefing, right through the packed race programme that started at 11.30am, to the finish about 5pm.
But few had an answer for the sheer brilliance of Stauffer, a surprise winner because he had not seen the circuit until a few days before the event, t but perhaps not so surprising because he had been similarly remarkable when he won on debut at the country's other big annual street race, Wanganui's Cemetery Circuit event on Boxing Day.
"It's been a bit of whirlwind," said the 34-year-old from the Gold Coast. "We don't race on public streets in Australia, so it's all been a bit new to me.
"It was good I got to follow a few other riders at the start of each race because I was still learning the circuit," said the Wanganui-based Bernard Racing Yamaha Team rider.
"It takes a bit of time to pick these things up but, once I had the lead, I was good to go."
Stauffer won both the formula one races, finishing the day ahead of joint second-ranked riders Hayden Fitzgerald (Honda), of Hawera, and Sloan Frost (BMW), of Tauranga.
Stauffer also won the 10-lap King of the Streets feature race, finishing ahead of Frost, Fitzgerald and Ryan Hampton (Honda), of Christchurch, in that order.
"It's amazing that I could come across and, first time out, win these two prestigious New Zealand street races [at Wanganui and Paeroa]. Hayden Fitzgerald and Sloan Frost were going very well and they certainly made me work for it."
Other winners on the day were Auckland's Karl Morgan (Suzuki, formula two), New Plymouth's Terry Fitzgerald (Suzuki, formula three), Rotorua's Scott Birch (Aprilia, super motard), Auckland's Phil Duxbury (Suzuki, post classics, pre-89), Sloan Frost (bears, non-Japanese bikes), Huntly's Ginger Molloy (Bultaco, juniors classics), Napier's Warren Marsh (Norton, senior classics) and Wanganui pair Adam Unsworth and Stu Dawe (Windle, sidecars).
It's first blood to the South Island's Josh Coppins after the opening round of this season's New Zealand Motocross Championships near Timaru on Sunday.
The Yamaha rider from Motueka threw down the gauntlet in the MX1 class, scoring 2-1-1 results on his way to building a three-point lead over Rotorua Honda rider Michael Phillips as the Demon Energy-sponsored series heads back across Cook Strait for the three remaining rounds in the North Island - at Patetonga, near Morrinsville, in just a weeks' time, at Rotorua on March 20 and in New Plymouth on March 27.
The MX2 class was also fiercely-fought with Australian visitor Cody Mackie (Honda) emerging as the points leader with fellow Australian Daniel McCoy (Suzuki) keeping him honest and finishing the day just eight points behind.