Tanner repeats King of Port victory

MOTORCYCLING

Mail photo: MARTIN DE RUYTER

Flying: Peter Tanner of Palmerston North won the big race on his Aprilia RSVR.

Relevant offers

Fears that a repeat of last year's track melting at the Port Nelson street races held off as Palmerston North rider Peter Tanner took the King of the Port title for the second year running.

"It's bloody good," he said yesterday of his second win.

Not that it was obvious, but he said early fears that the tar was going to melt meant he had to hold back on sections of the race, riding the same "Itchy Trout Racing" Aprilia RSVR that he won on last year.

Earlier in the day Tanner also won the Formula 1 and BEARS races with commanding leads.

Race announcer Phil Garrett said the King of the Port race took the top five racers from each earlier race and, compared with other four or six lap races, was a test of endurance at 10 laps.

"It is King of the Port that everybody wants to take home with them."

It also came at the end of a long racing day. Tanner would have already clocked up close to 200 racing kilometres over the day.

Race organiser Andy Watson said the day had been a great success, and they managed to get all three rounds of racing in, in front of a crowd of around 3500.

There were three crashes during the day, with two riders taken to Nelson Hospital with serious injuries, St John Ambulance operations team manager Gary Tobin said today. He said a 48-year-old Wakefield man received shoulder and pelvic injuries in a crash which happened after the brakes on his bike apparently failed.

Mr Tobin praised organisers for the well-run event, backed by medical staff on hand to manage emergencies.

Daniel Ornsby from Hillsborough won the Formula 2 race, Andrew Rangi from Stoke took out Formula 3, Neville Wills from St Arnaud won the Classics class, Cantabrian Bernard Ryan won the Post Classics and Mitch Rowe from Mount Pleasant won the Supermoto open race.

- © Fairfax NZ News