Former Southlander Seth Morrow says part of the reason he and his family moved from Invercargill to Auckland was to strengthen his position on the motocross scene. And that move looks like it may be starting to pay off.
Now based in Silverdale, Morrow impressed at the 61st annual New Zealand Motocross Grand Prix at Woodville, the biggest and best stand-alone motocross in New Zealand. He won the junior 15-16 years’, 125cc class on Saturday and then backed that up by finishing third overall in the senior 125cc class the following day.
At just 15 years of age, the slim frame of this teenager may be deceiving because he does pack a ton of talent, energy and enthusiasm into it.
“We moved north from Invercargill about a year ago now and that was for me to get into some tougher racing. The CML GASGAS Racing Team is based here and that helps too.
“It was good to secure a win in the junior 125cc class overall, even after it bucketed down with rain, and I just had to ride smart, not push it too hard,” he said, although he did eventually win all three races on Saturday.
Even if he had slipped to second or third in that final race, it was likely still enough to wrap up the class win.
“I’m loving the bike and I can’t thank (team manager) Karl Brabant enough for all that he does for me and the rest of the team too.”
Morrow will be a year 12 pupil at Orewa College this year and says he is looking forward to that too.
Meanwhile, fellow CML GASGAS Racing Team Rider Cody Cooper was a little less fortunate than his junior team-mate, with goggle issues in the day’s final MX1 race hampering his bid for another podium finish at Woodville and he had to settle for an unaccustomed fourth overall.
The Opotiki sporting legend is a three-time former MX1 class overall winner at Woodville, one of only six riders to achieve three or more wins in the event’s 61-year history.
However, the 40-year-old Cooper, did get himself onto the podium in the MX2 (250cc) class on Sunday.
It was something of a mixed bag, though, for Cooper in his 250cc campaign as he finished third in race one, before charging out of the gate and winning race two. But he had a shocking start in the final MX2 race and because he’d spent so much energy during the day racing two classes, there was nothing left in his body’s fuel tank for the final race and 10th was all he could manage.
The current national MX2 champion was using the Woodville event as a warm-up for the four-round New Zealand Motocross Championships series, due to kick off near Rotorua this coming Saturday, so racing to third overall at Woodville at least allowed him to tick a few boxes on the bike set-up front.
“The truth is that I always want to win, so I am a little disappointed with my weekend at Woodville,” he said.