The Burt Munroe challenge was an awesome time for our team. Those on the bus left Hamilton on the Sunday before and headed to Vinegar Hill to stay for the first night. The next day they had a look around the bike shops in Wellington and on the Tuesday morning crossed over on the Interislander ferry which did us an awesome price organized by Bike Tranz. The service was outstanding. You couldn’t ask for better. Arriving in Picton it was off to Christchurch were we were to pick up Ray who had been left behind due to work commitments.

As usual Les and Lee opened up their home for all of us and the rum came out. Graeme managed to sneak off to bed but Ray, Trev and Les had the resulting headache that comes with over indulgence the next day. LaSalle certainly had his eyes opened up to what shenanigans go on when on tour. He was at ease with all these new people by the time they hit Invercargill.

The first day was practise with extremely high winds which saw the beach racing called off. Nick and Lesley were duely picked up from the airport and Nick went out for practice and clicked back into race mode pretty quickly. Saturday dawned and I received a text saying "Bloody Freezing here" Nick who runs around in shorts and a singlet in the winter had on two t-shirts, his team shirt, a jersey, team jacket and the Kawasaki jacket over the top and was still cold.

First up was practise and qualifying which saw all of our riders place well. Graemes bike unfortunately blew up in the first practise so he became Nicks mechanic for the weekend. The North island boys from the Register all did well with Jamie Galway taking first in both races on the Norton and Andrew Drake taking second in both races. The rest of the riders Graham Peters, Chris Hyland, John Anderson, Ray Hayward, Rob Chappell, LaSalle Carr took 3rd, 9th, 10th, 11th, 15th and 16th in the first race and moved up a place for the majority in the second race. The little 350’s were up against the bigger 750 Nortons and Harleys so they did well.

Nick was our Modern rider for the weekend and his first race saw him battle it out with South Island rider John Ross. And it was a battle to the finish with Nick taking second place. Into the pits and the Master suspension guru Dukie from Dukic Suspension tweaked the bike and back out again for the next race which saw Nick looking relaxed with the bike and taking first place. So that was one under the belt and off to speedway to relax for the evening before heading to Wyndham to set up for Sundays street racing.

Sunday dawned nice and fine so out for practice with once again the North Island boys doing well but our little 350’s started playing up and crying "enough for us". This left young LaSalle on the 250 BSA to work his way through the field and he improved as the day wore on.

Nick goes out for practise and qualifying and bugger me he makes "Pole position". Smiles all round for the Team and out he goes for the first race which had the Superbikes and Supersport class combined. This was to be a battle for every race that had the strong support from the vocal crowd for Nick. Stroud out dragged Nick to the finish line with the 1000 just beating Nicks 600. Next race out a determined Nick mad sure that he braked later than Stroudy which is a feat in itself. It worked with Nick getting 1st, Stroud 2nd and Hayden FitzGerald 3rd. The battle was on for the third race of the day which went to Stroud.

The excitement was enormous and at the end Nick did a blackie and stroud did a burnout for the crowd. When I picked Nick up from the airport the next day he was still on a high as he took out both the titles for Teretonga and Wyhdham for the Supersport class and boke the lap record for Wydham and Stroud broke the lap record for the Superbikes there also so both extremely happy. He came home with two beautiful trophies cast in bronze. One was a conrod and the other a piston. These were mounted on wood and had a rat chewing on them also cast in bronze.

The rest of the team arrived home at 12:45am on the Wednesday after again having a smooth trip on the Interislander ferry. They were tired but still very excited after the weekend. They reckoned Graeme held his breath the whole time Nick was racing at Wyndham and after the first race when he saw straw stuck under Nicks knee sliders he took him aside and told him to slow down he didn’t have to win. (yeah right!!!) Of course Nick agreed like most teenagers and then did his own thing. He is excused this time for not listening to dad.

The only thing that did worry me was the mention of the consumption of thirteen (yes that is thirteen) bottles of rum emptied during this trip. (remember don’t ask unless you want a silly answer). The Southern Times did a great article on Nick and said "he was a young talented rider" which made the whole team extremely proud to be a part of. Nick said having the red shirts of our team around the track on the corners cheering him on was so awesome.

A tired lot of guys this week but a very happy bunch. Some of the stories are best told by them and not printed for the world to see but young LaSalle has learn’t never to go karting with Nick and threaten to kick his arse. He is sporting two enormous bruises on his hips. No sympathy from the others who all have been on the end of that stick before but were mean enough not to mention it to LaSalle. Never mind there is always next time.

A big big thank you must go to our sponsors who are listed down the side of the page so please support them. Nick also wanted me to add that he is proud to be racing the Kawasaki as it is an exceptional model. Thanks Mike Wilkins. Along with the combination of the Dunlop tyres whose grip is the best he has ever had and the SBS brake pads that he so relied on against Stroudy it made his weekend.