Scott Columb has got a comeback in mind for Sunday's penultimate round of the New Zealand motocross championships as he attempts to slash a 29-point deficit to MX2 class leader Kayne Lamont.
The Queenstown rider was on Mangakino-based Lamont's tail going into the second round two weeks ago but a DNF in the third race at Tokoroa dropped him back.
Columb's day started with two small crashes in the first moto before fighting back to fourth. The defending champion then went off the track in his second outing but managed to ''come from the back up to first'', he said.
The dry conditions meant the riders' engines had been sucking up dirt so, with dust affecting his race bike, his manager, Josh Coppins, made the decision for Columb to turn to his back-up practice bike for the third and final race.
''That proved, in hindsight, to be a mistake on our part,'' Coppins said.
''The engine on the practice bike had already done quite a few hours and it didn't survive the race.''
Columb had set the fastest lap time before the Yamaha YZ250 started to ''run poorly'', eventually locking up and sending him over the handlebars, with the bike mechanically unable to restart the race.
This dropped Columb from a close second to a distant third in the MX2 class standings behind Lamont and second-placed Hamish Dobbyn, of Dargaville. However, he is ready to claw his way back at Pukekohe this weekend.
''The competition can have bad races. I'm riding well. We are still not giving in.''
The second round ''wasn't a good weekend'' for Palmerston's Courtney Duncan and she was reviewing whether she would contest this next round.
Campbell King, of Dunedin, was still recovering from a foot injury sustained at the New Zealand Motocross Grand Prix in January and although he will not ride on Sunday, he will reassess attending the fourth and final round, set for Taupo on March 22.
The nation's elite motocross racers head to Harrisville, on Pukekohe's outskirts, on Sunday. Mt Maunganui's Cody Cooper (Honda) leads the premier MX1 class by a comfortable 21 points from Australian-based Scotsman Billy MacKenzie (Yamaha).
In the 125cc class, Hamilton's Josiah Natzke (KTM) and Atiamuri's Hadleigh Knight (KTM) shared wins at Tokoroa to move up to the No1 and No2 respectively.
