“Sam Smith and Nick Cole are taking no prisoners – and the war hasn’t even started ”. These are the words that were printed in the NZ Herald after Nick and Sam raced at Manfeild in July.  The war did start definitely between riders at the latest round on July 19th.

Sam and Nick were entered on their 600’s in both Superbike and Supersport classes. The weather was cold and pouring down but that didn’t slow down these two classes. First up was Superbikes, this saw Nick battling it out with Johnny Burkhart with Johnny taking first place  followed by Nick, Sloan Frost, then Sam all on 600’s Carey Briar was next on a 1000. Further back in the field saw  Jamie Galway in 12th position and Adam Chambers in 13th.

Race two was Supersport and once again Johnny and Nick were at it again but it ended up with Sloan, Sam and Jamie Galway fighting it out behind Nick and Johnny dropping back to 23rd position and Adam coming in 7th.Back in the pits I spotted Adam and Nick discussing cornering and braking which must have worked because in the next superbike race Adam moved from 13th to 8th.

Race three Superbikes again saw a battle between the front runners with Nick and Sam pulling away from the rest of the field. Unfortunately for Sam he was 1.186 seconds behind Nick and trying really hard to catch Nick when he  came off and broke his wrist. Surgery for Sam now, so we wished him all the best. He texted us saying he will be back as he can’t let Nick take all the advantage as he is already a demon on brakes etc… The race was Red Flagged and they received half points. Nick won both sections with Carey Briar coming second and Sloan Frost third. Adam came 10th  this time and 8th in the first half.

Race four was finally held at 4.30p.m  which again saw Johnny and Nick battling it out. Johnny was seen to come out of his seat at least three times and his motorcross experience showed as he put the bike into a few slides in the centre field. Nick and Johnny both rode the white lines which went back around the corner to mark out the grid positions for the cars as if they weren’t there. It was thrilling to watch. Sloan was third and Jamie was back out after fixing his bike and came 4th with Adam in 12th position.

1.14.060sec  was the time for them in the rain so that shows how exciting it was. Nick ended up with top points overall for both classes which  has his points as 134 in first place for superbikes with the next being Sloan on  108 and Sam on 104. In the Supersport class First Nick on 134, 2nd Sloan on 120, 3rd Sam on 111.

Last but not least we had young Matt Hayward out there on his Kawasaki in the 150 class. Matt had spent all day Friday going round and round in the rain as this was a new experience for him. His first race we were cheering him on as he was going faster than he had at the last round and was passing both 125 and 150 riders.

Unfortunately Matt has a habit of lifting completely off the seat to move and he pulled the brake on at the same time. He now has experienced the thrill of going along the track skinning elbows and knees. The first thing he did on returning to the pits was to hunt Nick out for a bit of advice. They checked out his bike and then Matt was ready for his next race.

Now being new to all this we did expect young Matt to be his usual cautious self but he was off  with a flying start and overtaking and sliding his backside across the seat and came over the finish line with a great big grin in 7th position.

Being so tired we had to go to the Irish Pub for one drink before we left for the long trek home. Fortunately Jimmy saw sense and booked us all in at the motel for an extra night so it was a very merry bunch over dinner and several more Guinness or in Rays case Waikatos. Matt shared our room and because he was so tired he snored all night long – something his parents swear he doesn’t normally do!!!