In the Footsteps of Burt I'll continue to bore you with tales of this year's visit to the Burt Munro Challenge. To win the Burt Munro Challenge, riders don’t need to be the fastest, smoothest or boldest. They don’t even need to win an event! They just have to bring along the attributes that allow them to compete in the spirit, the ‘vibe of the thing’. To my mind, that’s what makes the BMC such a unique week. Take Gareth Hamill, Aka Scruff. He pulled apart his 1981 Yamaha YZ465H, packed it in his luggage and turned up at the airport headed for ‘The Burt’. As the bike had been in contact with fuel and oil the reception at check-in was less than positive… ‘Absolutely no way is that going on that plane!’ Not to be deterred, a mate picked up the parts from the airport, Scruff jumped on the flight and bought a rough but sound ’97 KX500, sight unseen in New Zealand, fitted new tyres and went racing. The change of bikes was so late, even the programmes list Gareth as riding the YZ. A KLX wasn’t gonna pull the skin of a rice pudding on the dragstrip but that wasn’t the point. Scruff had a ball, what he did pull was a massive wheelie up the straight.
Looking like he’d just said farewell to Wilson and returned to civilisation, Kevin Ryan is a regular Burt entrant. He’s competed at every Burt and is a past, two-time Munro Family Trophy winner. Mounted on an outwardly rough as guts 1966 Triumph MLC 800, a ‘bitsa’ wrapped in obviously home-made parts Kevin makes quite an impact. Decked out in leathers that Noah probably raced in, wild hair, eyebrows and beard flowing in his wake this bloke is the essence of The Burt and Kiwi racing.
No spring chicken, Kevin set a grueling schedule in 30-degree heat. Not only did he compete but backed up a few hours later at each event. Hill climbing in the morning and drag racing in the evening. Or circuit racing for brunch and speedway for dinner. Personally, touched by the Pike River mine disaster, he wears a T-Shirt over his patched and scuffed leather with the words ‘Remembering the 29’, a reference to the number of his workmates lost. Then there’s the commentator Neil Ritchie, he’s done every Burt too, on the blower! I don’t know about you, but event commentators can get on my goat. Not Neil, for the five events he called (that went for hours) he rarely talked crap, had excellent rider background, understood the event inside-out and made sense. Take a trip to the Burt you ‘pro’ commentators out there and learn a thing or two! Repeat offender Damien Koppe, was back having another crack at The Burt. Hailing from Townsville this early thirty-something rider is a joy to watch. His background in Speedway, Motocross and Dirt Track (including a spell as a Pro in the UK on grass tracks) was stunningly evident. On the wet sand of Oreti Beach he’d flick out the rear wheel and drift his 450 Kato for what seemed like a third of the length of the straight. He’d line up the apex of the U-turn corner and gas it at the straight, pretty to watch! Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to back up his 2018 win due to a mechanical DNF.
ZZ Top and family made up his crew, helping him change the bike from a dirt bike to Super Motard between events. In the spirit of Burt, Damo rolled out to contest beach racing, speedway, hill climb, drags and circuit racing.
At the pointy end of the pits the Rees Dynasty, a Carl Cox sponsored roadshow, set up camp. Sporting CRF450 dirt bikes and CBR1000 SP1 with signed up truck, uniforms, and marquee couldn’t have been a further contrast from Scruff or Kev Ryan in his old school bus. Damon Rees is campaigning in the Aussie Superbikes this season and must have enjoyed the sand of Oreti Beach a bit much, gravitating to the white stuff at Phillip Island’s turn 2 recently.
American teenager Jamie Astudillo is in transition from motocross to road racing. To help expedite her development she was brought out to NZ to broaden her experience. Riding a stunningly gorgeous, rare-as-rockin’-’orse (1 of 200) Ducati F1 750 Santa Monica on the road and a 450 Kato in the dirt, she had a red hot go. From this hack’s view-point, she seemed to be struggling with the massive learning curve, that’s the point, I guess.
The oldest bike was a 1946 Girder fork ES2 500 Norton. The newest a 2018 V4 Ducati Panigale 1100 ridden by 50-year-old engineer Heath Botica, on the road. The mad bugger fronted up at the start line of the beach racing on the biggest bike, an 1190 KTM wrapped in grey duct tape. Hell… don’t want to damage it, eh Bro? The big Kato was obviously a handful, but it became pretty obvious, pretty quickly that he had the ‘Kahunas’ for it. While not as ‘speccy’ as Koppe the 2011 BMC Trophy winner still put on a show.
This year’s Burt Munro Family Trophy winner was Butch Wood riding a 1970 750 Norton Commando. A competitor at every BMC since its inception Butch took a third (in his class) in the Hillclimb and Street-races.
Special mention needs to go to old mate the race marshal, showing a yellow flag, standing on a hay bale and smoking a coffin nail! This embodies the spirit of the event for me. ‘Relax, what could possibly go wrong?’ | 