SUNRAYSIA’s Nicholas Waters picked up another dirt track state title, the hotly-contested Pro 450cc class, during a challenging and intense weekend at the Pope Building Service 2016 Victorian Senior & Junior Dirt Track Championships at the State Motorcycle Sports Complex at Broadford on
December 10-11.
Waters, 22, from Mildura, did it the hard way though after suffering a crash during the heats on Saturday. “I got tangled up with a couple of other riders. I came off my bike and I and my bike got run over,” Nick recalled.
“Luckily, I was OK, and Daniel Wicks’ old man and Rohan Tegart’s father both helped me get the bike back into racing shape. I don’t know how I did it but somehow I came back out in the re-run of the race and won it,” Nick said. “That was a pretty good effort to come back from that,” he added.
“On Sunday, it was back to game on. There was a fair bit of bar banging going on in all the classes. The track on Sunday was awesome. You could win from anywhere. It didn’t matter where you raced. You could race on the fence or the pole line but you could still win races. The racing just got better as the day went on,” Nick continued.
“Coming into the Pro 450cc finals, I went in second pick to Rohan Tegart, and Brad Burns was third. It was on for young and old. As it is with a Victorian title, it’s either go hard or go home.
“I got off to a pretty good start and was second behind Burns. In the second lap of the race coming into turn one though the dog-keg Brad got out of shape. I thought he was going left, but he turned back right and we clipped each other that sent myself into a bit of a cartwheel, which didn’t help the bike at all,” he recalled.
“In the re-run, I didn’t have time to fix up my bike so I went without front brakes. Once the gates dropped, I got a pretty good start and led going into the first turn and it stayed like that for the rest of the race. I was over the moon to get first in the Pro 450cc class against Daniel Wicks in second and Rohan Tegart in third,” Nick said.
Nick also finished second in the Pro Open class finishing second to Daniel Wicks and Mildura’s Rohan Tegart finished in third. “It was pretty cool for the Mildura riders to do so well at the meeting. It was a good weekend overall. I was a bit battered and bruised but I went home with some awesome trophies,” Nick said.
“I’d really like to thank the Harley Club of Victoria, their volunteers, and Richard Loft, for organising the titles. They did a really good job. I would also like to thank Marcus Holt for all his help throughout the weekend and wish him a speedy recovery, and Arai Helmets, O’Neill Gear, Smith Goggles, Deakin Motorcycles, and Honda Australia for all their support and Brodie for helping me build the motors for my bike,” he praised.
Nick is looking forward to next year where he hopes Mildura gets the right to host the Australian and Victorian dirt track titles. “There are rumours going around that Mildura has the Aussie titles and the Vic titles next year. It’ll throw some new names into the mix, so it’ll be great if that happens,” Nick added.