Suzuki's Taylar Rampton Does It Again

It was an emotional moment for Taranaki's Taylar Rampton when she captured her second major motocross title at the weekend.

The 20-year-old from Opunake secured her first senior national motocross title when she won the 2017 New Zealand senior women’s motocross championships in Eltham in November and now she has added the inaugural Women’s Cup motocross trophy.

The two-round Women’s Cup competition was being held in conjunction with the first two rounds of this year’s New Zealand Motocross Championships and the second round of that was staged on the outskirts of Rotorua on Sunday.

Rampton took her Suzuki RM-Z250 to finish 3-2-1 in her three Women’s Cup outings at Rotorua on Sunday and that, coupled with her 1-1-3 results from round one of the Women’s Cup in Taranaki three weeks earlier, was enough for her to take the trophy by nine points from an unlucky Letitia Alabaster.

Rotorua’s Alabaster had led the deciding final race of the series before succumbing to pressure from Rampton, losing her position at the front and then crashing soon afterwards.

With all pressure lifted from Rampton, she was able to simply cruise to the chequered flag and claim the top trophy.

Alabaster held on to the No.2 spot overall for the series, while Motueka’s Roma Edwards won the battle with Te Kuiti’s Sam Kelly to claim third overall.

“It feels great to win this. I was crying inside my helmet on that last lap," said Rampton afterwards.

"I didn’t know if I would even make it here to race today because of a few difficult personal circumstances. I’m sad my dad couldn’t be here today.

"This new competition was fantastic and the racing throughout really was awesome.

"It has been a great season for me, especially after having been out of the sport for two years with a knee injury."

Meanwhile, in the four-round men’s championship, Hamilton's Kayne Lamont (MX1 class), Takaka's Hamish Harwood (MX2 class) and Mangakino's Maximus Purvis (125cc class) maintained their respective class leads at the second of four rounds of this competition on Sunday.

Taupo Suzuki RM-Z250 rider Brad Groombridge maintained his position at second overall in the MX2 class, the dual-class ironman and current national cross-country champion also taking his Suzuki RM-Z450 bike to finish the day seventh overall in the MX1 class, also holding on his seventh overall position in that separate title chase.

Words and photo by Andy McGechan, BikesportNZ.com