Come support Avalon and New Zealand’s top motorcyclists at Hampton Downs for round 4 of the 2012 superbike championships. More info here

Hi everyone,

My friend and 2008 New Zealand 125gp champion Cameron Jones was critically injured in a racing accident at the Levels round of nationals three weeks ago now. He is suffering from severe brain and spinal injuries and is still in ICU in Burwood hospital.

You can help the Jones family through this buy purchasing coffee from this facebook group, https://www.facebook.com/groups/287280401331414, with the funds from each purchase going directly to them. Your help is really appreciated

Thanks for your support for Cam!

Avalon

Hi Everyone

3 consecutive weekends racing is completed with me currently sitting in 9th position in the 600 Supersport Championship.

Timaru’s Levels Raceway hosted round 2 last weekend 14th and 15th. It rained constantly on the Friday practise day but the weekend was hot and sunny.

Unfortunately the track was very slick however due to a lot of oil being dumped on the first few turns which definitley hindered everyones lap times. After qualifing in 13th position of 20 I certainly wasnt looking forward to the start, trying to make up positions and avoid the oil was a risky combination!  It went ok although I dropped a couple of places while avoiding a crashed rider and ended up in 11th place in the 1st race.

Race 2 was going a heap better, I was managing to keep up with some faster riders until my race came to a grinding holt due to a miscalculation with the fuel which saw me run out 3 laps from the end.

It was a weekend of mixed emotions: I was gutted to DNF but happy at the same time that I had been running a better pace and most of all had been thinking of my friend Cam Jones who was seriously injured Sunday morning. He is still in Intensive Care. Please keep him in your prayers and keep an eye out on Trademe for items being auctioned with the proceeds going to a fund for Cam.

The 3rd round was held in Invercargill this past weekend. I couldn’t wait to ride one of my favorite tracks ever on the CBR600! Qualifying left me in grid position 9 – far better than the previous two rounds which gave me a boost of confidence. I ended the 1st race in 9th with a seriously torn tire. It was good experience for me to ride with the rear moving around so much and feel how the bike behaves with deteriorated rubber.

Race Two and Invercargill weather did its thing in time for me to go around the outside of a few people at turn 1 putting me in 4th position. I held on to 4th for a few of laps until I began to struggle to see with my visor fogging. It was my fault for not sticking the pinlock antifog strip in properly but I was still happy to finish in my highest placing this year of 7th.

Huge thanks;

to my team – Jamie, Scott, Georgie, Shannon, Travers and especially mum and dad – for all their hard work and making it a fantastic few weeks. I cant thank Jamie enough for getting me out there this year.

to Pete Finlay, the Castrol Honda boys and Blue Wing Honda for all the help and support I could ask for.

to my sponsors and supporters – Baywatch  Motor  Lodge, please stay here when you are in Timaru, Uncle Geoff and Aunty Gay, Race Pace Trainers, Deep Web – Web Design, Blue Wing Honda, HJC helmets, Sidi boots, NGK spark plugs, Tridon Toledo Tools, Carcolors, Bearing Wholesale, Metzeler tyres and Total Oil.

And finally to all the other riders for the great racing and making our sport awesome to be part of.

My next championship race will be the 4th round at Hampton Downs on March 17/18th. We will also use the Pacific Club race meeting at Taupo in February as a shake down for nationals there late March.

Until then,

Avalon.

Hi guys,

The 2012 NZ road race championships are underway after round one at Ruapuna Park Raceway in Christchurch on the weekend.

Although the forecast wasn’t too flash we had fine weather all weekend with only a few small quakes. The competition in the 600cc supersport class is incredibly strong this year and not having ridden a 600 at Ruapuna before Friday testing made it a difficult weekend for myself and Wolf Pack Racing Honda, but we improved steadily and can’t be too disappointed with the result.

After qualifying in 14^th position I knew I needed good starts in both races on Sunday. Race 1 saw me get off the line well but brake way too early for turn 1 and get swamped. I struggled to get into a rhythm all race and ended in 16^th position – not where I wanted to be but my fastest lap time of a 1.35.7 was a positive to take. I also ended up passing people on the brakes which has been my weak point since getting on the 600 so I was kind of pumped about that.

15 lap races are a lot longer than what I’ve ever done so Jamie made more power shakes to keep us energised for race 2 which was also the NZ Grand Prix. They look like charcoal but are great for energy! I had a better first lap and settled into a really good pace which I was able to maintain all race, finishing in 10^th position and 8^th in my class.

I’m aiming to keep on improving my riding and championship position this weekend at Levels Raceway.

You can follow the timing, video and live updates at www.nzsbk.com if you’re interested otherwise stay tuned for more news next week!

Avalon.

Taupo’s Wolf Pack Racing along with Blue Wing Honda NZ have teamed up with Avalon and are excited to race the 2012 season aboard a Honda cbr600rr.

The dates for the championship are as follows:

Round 1 Powerbuilt Raceway Christchurch January 7th – 8th ,

Round 2 Timaru Raceway January 17-18 ,

Round 3 Teretonga Invercargill Park 24-25 ,

Round 4 Hampton Downs Auckland March 17-18 ,

Round 5 Taupo Raceway Taupo March 24-25.

You can follow live timing and audio for the championship here: http://www.nzsuperbike.com/p/live-updatestiming-etc.html, and be sure to check back here for race reports from each round.

Hi guys,

Sorry I haven’t been in contact sooner, I have had a crazy amount of university work to catch up on before my end of year exams in two weeks. Anyway, following is a report on how the wildcard weekend went..

After picking up the bike on Wednesday we headed straight out to the Island, greeted by beautiful weather. Coming from winter here I thought it was pleasantly warm and giggled to myself hearing Europeans complaining about how cold it was. Thursday was spent setting up the bike, walking the track with Darren from the California Superbike School and attending a riders briefing, plus making myself dizzy doing so many laps in my head.

Mum, Shannon, Avalon, Dad and Chris

Before first practise on Friday I was nervous but knew that deep down there was really nothing to worry about, the bike would run fine and this was just about learning the track and getting some feedback from it as to what we can do to move forward next session. Unfortunately the bike just simply wasn’t making any power and was extremely slow. It was cool being on track with the world championship riders. They are the best in the world and I tried to learn what I could from them. After coming in from that session I had the TV crew in my face for the next 20minutes. I didn’t mind but just thought it was funny here they were filming the person in 33^rd place in the time standings.. I couldn’t help but imagine what it would be like if I was at the front of the field!

After the session we put the bike issue down to it being far too rich on the engine settings and Ozzy got everything geared up for next session, confident it would be much better. Unfortunately it was just the same. Since there wasn’t much we could do then and there I just kept riding, opting to learn some more and sort out a bit of suspension etc. We put a battery on to my bike for the next day as we thought the stator was at fault.

Fixing the bike in pit lane

Big crowds on Saturday, here watching Casey Stoner in action

Saturday morning: the big day. I woke up feeling confident and was excited that the bike might actually make it over 200km/hr today! Unfortunately we were faced with the exact same issue so we did a swap of the ECU in pit lane half way through the session. Waallaaaaa…  problem fixed! The bike was running much better. But because we had set the engine settings for the underperforming ECU, the engine ran a little too lean and seized up going into Honda hairpin. Next thing I’m going over the bars and the bike is catapulting into my head. I ended up in the medical centre with a headache but luckily no other injuries. I made the decision not to take part in qualifying that afternoon because I certainly wasn’t feeling 100% and didn’t see it as fair for a wildcard to put guys who are fighting for a world championship at risk, especially on a bike we still weren’t sure of.

Photos from: http://motogp.com.au/photos/2011/saturday

By Sunday typical Phillip Island weather had struck and none of the races were 100% dry. It was pretty hard stuff to just be watching but I kept telling myself to learn from this and use it to make me stronger and more determined for the future. I got to spend a bit of time in the media centre meeting some reporters and seeing what goes on behind the scenes. You can listen to a radio interview I did here: http://penandpapersports.com/document.php?docID=406

A thank you goes to Tridon Australia and their ‘BikeService’ brand, Jamie Kett & Dion Sellers for the help, and also Darren, Scott and Cully for their support over the weekend. A very special thanks to Chris Osbourne for his huge amount of work with both the bike and myself for the weekend. Also to my uncle Geoff, without his amazing generosity I would have never even considered competing in this event a possibility. Finally, mum and dad for giving me the confidence, support and a huge amount of effort to chase after my goals. I won’t even begin to explain how many late nights (turned early mornings) dad had in the garage getting the bike ready and packed, but having this support from my family is what keeps me going when the going gets tough as it did this event.

Now on to better and brighter weekends, I am looking forward to racing my Wolfpack Racing Honda CBR600 at Taupo this weekend. Bring it on!!

Thanks for reading,

Avalon.

Hi everyone,

As most have you will have heard I have obtained a wildcard entry to the Australian MotoGP event in the world 125cc class at Phillip Island next weekend. Yep, the 125 class they show on television right before motoGP in over 200 countries around the world. The real deal!

Just how excited I am to have this opportunity probably hasn’t really shown through over the last couple of weeks because there has been so much to do in such a short space of time. I applied for the wildcard earlier in the year but heard that all the Australian spots were already full, so we applied to the FIM. After not hearing back from them all winter my hopes weren’t too high. In fact we had started selling my 125 gear because here I was thinking I would never be racing one again, let alone in a world GP! Then just 3½ weeks a go we had the entry confirmed.

I will be riding essentially the same bike I have raced here for the last 3 years – a honda rs125. A ‘special edition’ however, as I am fortunate enough to have the loan of an engine from the Hoogenboezem family, ignition from Chris Osbourne, forks from Jason Easton and a rear shock from Steve Ward. A big thank you also to Wobbly for his time and making a cylinder head suitable, Kev from RaceSupplies for his support, Kazu for the advice and Steve Bagshaw for some carburetor parts. So many people have all chipped in to put the best bike possible together. I can’t thank everyone enough for their generosity. Although we will still be approximately 20km/hr down on top speed from the world championship regulars, the machine is definitely better than anything I’ve ridden before and I feel it will be capable of getting within 107% of the pole position lap time – which is needed for me to qualify for the race. The biggest challenge we face is having to run the FIM standard of fuel which is not available here.

Dad and I (plus Ozzy, via a very hefty phone bill!) have been out at Pukekohe the last 2 weekends testing the bike and getting the rider up to speed. It hasn’t been smooth sailing but all things considered, so far so good.

The bike has now been packed and shipped to Melbourne. Air freighters take note: MELBOURNE, not Sydney where it ended up last time!! Mum, Dad, Ozzy and I will fly out next Wednesday where we will meet our team owner Geoff (aka my awesome uncle) and head out to the track. Ozzy is super knowledgeable and really helpful so I’m looking forward to working with him over the weekend. I’m also looking forward to having Scott and Cullly -the genius behind my bucket racer – there, along with my best friend Shannon, good friend Julie and a whole heap of kiwi’s who I know are heading over for the weekend. Also Darren from the California Superbike School will be there and has offered some advice.

I don’t think my trainer Tracy is going to buy my idea and swim across the Tasman for some extra fitness training, but her & her family will be there in spirit. I have to say a huge thank you to RacePace for not only the hardcore training but also being there for me over the winter when I needed it most.

Obviously we’re not going to be fighting for the win but to qualify for a world championship race at the Island has been a personal goal of mine for many years now. This will be the last ever MotoGP 125 two-stroke race to ever be staged at the island so here’s to giving it my best shot. I can’t wait to see how all the hard work I have put into 125’s over the last few years compares to the standard of the GP boys.

I’ll try updating my website throughout the weekend so check there if you want to stay updated.

Until next time,

Avgas.

We are excited to announce Avalon will be making her debut in the world championships at the 2011 Australian MotoGP event on October 15/16th. Riding in the 125gp class, she will be aboard the honda rs125 she rode in the New Zeland championships with some extra modifications. Due to a limited budget, the bike will be down on top speed compared to the world championship regulars, but the team are simply looking forward to enjoying the experience of racing with the ‘top dogs’ of 125gp racing.

You can read more about the wildcard entrants here.

Hi everyone,

After a relaxing off-season from racing, things have been all go for me lately with lots of exciting news to share.

Two weeks ago I had my first race on the  CBR600RR I will be racing this coming summer in with Wolf Pack Honda Racing. It was an awesome weekend down at Manfeild raceway and after 3 days riding and one day racing I was feeling really comfortable with the bike and managed some solid top 10 finishes in the F1 class. Huge thank you goes out to Jamie for setting up the team for the coming season, I can not wait for it all to kick off!

Dad and I then had three days at home before heading to the airport – Japan bound for a round of the FIM  Asia road race championships. NZ was invited for the first time so I was pretty excited to represent our country. The race was held at Sugo aboard 150cc four-strokes and featured 18 racer’s from Singapore, Taiwan, Indonesia, Thailand, Phillipines, India,  Sri Lanka and Korea. The two Japanese entrants were also girls so they were very happy to have another female join the racing and we became good friends over the weekend.

The riding kicked off on Friday with two 20min sessions on a damp track. Most of the day’s practise had been cancelled due to heavy fog – it was pretty hard to learn a new track when I couldn’t see more than 20metres ahead! There was about 5+ guys crash in the session! I also had to adjust to the style required by the smaller bikes. I managed to secure 8^th on the grid during qualifying, but had a slide down the road during the qualifying session which saw me miss quite a few laps as the bike wouldn’t restart again. Race 1 was held Saturday afternoon where I finished 11^th. The Indonesian riders were very dominant out front, followed closely by the Thai team and the Pilipino 600cc champion. 

Sunday morning I tagged along with some fast guys during warm-up and was going a lot better until the small bracket for holding the side stand dug into the track and launched me off. After this we asked for it to be rounded off with a grinder and I had a bit more confidence for the race. Got a better start and ended up 9th at the finish. 

I think the results speak for themselves just how competitive the racing was over there. Mostly everyone in the field was national champions in a race class and many of them were professional racer’s. To come away with a top 10 finish was a good result and they are very keen to invite New Zealand back again next year so hopefully that means Dad and I did a good job representing us. Thanks for Dad for his organisation and MNZ for letting me take this opportunity.

This event was held at a round of the All Japan Championships so we saw their very exciting fields of 125GP, 250 mono, 600 and superbike racing. Also caught up with a couple of Australian riders I have raced with on 125GP and as they are competing in the Japanese Championship series gave us more insight into the racing here.

The  FIM Asia event was hosted by the Japanese Motorcycling  Federation who did an amazing job of hosting and immersing us in the Japanese culture. Huge thanks to Mr Goto and Mrs Eda  for their efforts. It was awesome for me to meet and learn from riders from such different cultures and I think the experience will make me a much better racer after seeing their techniques!

Thanks for reading & until next time,

Avalon

Hi everyone,

The NZ championships are all over for another year, with me finishing in the number 2 position for the second year in a row.

Manfeild raceway is almost like a 2nd home to me after a lot of winter racing there so I was really looking forward to getting to Feilding and giving points leader Jake Lewis a good run for his money at the final round of the 201 championship… Read more here