May continues to bank solid points   7 Oct 2015

May continues to bank solid points

OCTOBER 7, 2015: New Zealand's Callan May continues to score solid points as his 2015 Grand National Cross-country Championship campaign in the United States draws closer to the end.

With the mid-season summer break now over in the GNCC series, temperatures slowly starting to cool off slightly on the east coast of the North American continent, the 23-year-old from Titirangi was itching to get back into top-flight action and make the most of the four rounds that were remaining to complete the 13-round season.

He took his Yamaha YZ250F to finish 28th overall (and 14th in his 250cc XC2 class) and 22nd overall (10th in class) at rounds 10 and 11, at New York and Pennsylvania respectively, and, although he wasn't entirely happy with those results, it kept him on track for a top-10 finish to the season.

"We arrived on Friday to New York's well known motocross venue at Unadilla for the first race back after the long summer break," said May.

"Track conditions were as good as they possibly could be with very little dust and only one mud hole to watch out for, some of the rocky uphills were still technical since there was moisture still coming up through the ground.

"Sunday morning arrived with the sun shining but still a fresh breeze to make it feel like winter is on its way.

"The start flag dropped and unfortunately it took two kicks to start my bike, so I was out the back going through the first corner. I was feeling good, making passes, and we got to a split section where I went one way and others behind me the other, they were able to get past me again which slowed down my forward momentum.

"From then onwards, I struggled to push and mentally I was struggling. I ended up 14th which is definitely not where I should have been or wanted to be after a long summer of training, but I took a lot from this race.

"Between Unadilla and the (round 11) race this past weekend, it rained a lot due to hurricane ‘Joaquin’, so I took some time off the bike to freshen up and get my drive back.

"The weekend's race was the ‘Car-Mate mountain ridge’ GNCC in Pennsylvania, a rocky ATV park situated on the top of a mountain ridge and surrounded by windmills.

"Sunday morning came around, the mountain was covered in the thickest fog I have ever seen, barely seeing 10 metres ahead. This, along with temperatures around 4 degrees, made vision a nightmare with goggles only lasting half a lap at a time.

"Once again my start was not ideal, but feeling fresh and ready to race I was making passes and feeling good. I came through scoring in the top seven on the first lap.

"Unfortunately I had a crash on the second lap and a rider behind ran over my bike wrecking the throttle body. Meanwhile, more riders were passing me. Using my Kiwi ingenuity, a few good kicks straightened things out and I was back on track.

"A stop for fresh goggles was happening ever lap but they weren't lasting so I decided to go for four laps without them. As the race went on I managed to re-gain some positions and finished the day in 10th which was happy about considering the circumstances.

"We now have a two-week break before heading to (St Clairsville in) Ohio for the second-to-last race of the season."

May is currently 10th overall in the XC2 (250cc) class, just 16 points behind ninth-ranked American fellow Yamaha rider Austin Lee.

American riders Jason Thomas, Ricky Russell and Trevor Bollinger occupy the top three positions in the class and, unfortunately, are well out of May's strike range.

May is supported by Yamaha Motor New Zealand, Kiwi Rider magazine, BikesportNZ.com, MotoSR, Golden Tyres, Fox, Graphic Creation, GYTR and Yamalube.

Words and photo by Andy McGechan, www.BikesportNZ.com

ENDS

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