DESPITE riding through a weekend he’d rather forget a fortnight ago, Scone’s Sam Noonan was determined to bounced back with a positive performance at Murray Bridge.
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Noonan suffered from bad luck in rounds three and four, with three flat tyres and a head-on collision into a tree leaving him five points behind Victorian hotshot Ashden Gramlick in the Australian Off Road Championship race.
A change of scenery, and bike, for round five on Saturday presented a stern test of his riding credentials.
“I really wanted to post some good results on the weekend and get the points I needed to go into the break as close as possible to the points lead as I could,” he said.
“I rode a different bike because my race bike developed an engine problem after a very muddy motocross race last weekend, so I had a totally different brand to what I've raced for the past three years.
“I hadn’t ridden it [the bike] on a track until the Saturday morning of the first day’s racing.”
After losing eight seconds on the first test, he really started to gel with the new bike. For the next six tests, Noonan was quicker in all but one and, by the day’s end, he had won round five by a little over 12 seconds.
Ahead of round six on Sunday, the teenager said he knew it would be another tough challenge with the likes of Gramlick pushing him to his limits.
“Ashden is a very determined competitor and a really good off road racer,” he said.
“As usual I made a few mistakes first time out and handed him a 14 second lead.
“I liked the rough track and was determined to make a race of it and, by the end of the third test, I was only one second off the leader's overall time.
“As with the day before in round five, I knew I'd finish the second half of the day stronger than I started,” he said.
“There were sections of track I really liked, and the bike was really good.”
Noonan went on to win his class by 55 seconds. He now leads J2 class of the Australian Off Road Championship by one point at the halfway mark of the 12-round series.
Noonan now has two months until the next two AORC rounds in Victoria, and expects to have his new bike totally dialed in by then with a state race helping him to prepare.
“I’ll be training hard to increase my lead, and will race in rounds five and six of the NSW Off Road Championship in Dungog next month as well,” he said.
“Big thanks to my sponsors and family for all their support; I am very lucky to be in this position and really appreciate the effort others go to for me to chase my dreams.”
