Scott motors to success
champion Tommy Watts to the chequered flag that day.
Then it was all quiet on the racing front, with a sevenweek break before rounds two and three scheduled for the long Easter Weekend, but Scott simply picked up where he had left off in February.
Scott won both the back-toback rounds two and three, near Pahiatua on Saturday and near Dannevirke on Easter Monday, proving comprehensively that his firstround win was certainly no fluke. It was the same podium that formed up at the end of racing on both days over the Easter break, Scott winning both three-hour senior races ahead of Watts, with Taupo¯’s Wil Yeoman crossing the line in third place both times.
With only three of the four rounds to be counted, it means that Scott’s win at round one, followed by his pair of wins over the weekend, put him in an unbeatable position and the national cross-country champs first-timer therefore wrapped up the New Zealand title with a round to spare.
“There was a little bit of pressure about a quarter of the way through the race today (Monday) and I could see that Tommy (Watts) was reeling me in,” said Scott afterwards. “I had a small crash, but then after that I just picked up my pace. I had an extra fuel stop, one more than Tommy, and that probably helped him a bit too.”
The venue for the fourth and final “dead rubber” round, to be held on either May 14 or 15, is still yet to be confirmed.
Ironically, next up for Scott is for him to team up with his cross-country champs rivals Watts and Yeoman to form the three-man New Zealand Junior Team at this year’s International Six Days Enduro, to be held near the town of Le Puy en Velay, in southern France, in late August and early September. “We have quite a strong team. We’re fierce rivals on the track, but good mates off it and I’m looking forward to going to France. I raced two rounds of the Enduro World Championships in 2021 and that gave me a good taste of what I can expect. I’ll race the New Zealand Enduro Championships this year too, before I head overseas.”