There's Tough and then There's Kiwi Tough!

Lamont bears the scars of title glory

ANDY MCGECHAN

Here's the short story . . . South Waikato's Kayne Lamont won the MX2 (250cc) title at this season's New Zealand Motocross Championships' final round in Taupo on Saturday.

The long version reads more like a fairytale, though, be warned, it's not for the squeamish.

Lamont and his Husqvarna Red Bull WIL Sport race team arrived at Taupo's fourth and final round of the 2014 New Zealand Motocross Championships with just three more MX2 class races on the programme to wrap up the series, but Lamont actually blessed with more than an entire race win up his sleeve.

The BikesportNZ.com-supported rider had done enough at the previous rounds to amass a massive 38-point advantage over his nearest rival, Dargaville's Hamish Dobbyn (KTM), and so the plan was to wrap up the title on Saturday with two good results in the early part of the day.

Lamont managed fourth and third placings early in the day, but it was a far cry from the convincing hat-trick of wins he'd produced at the previous round at Pukekohe and surely Taupo was his home track wasn't it?

What was wrong? Did it matter?

Those two results were enough for him to seal the MX2 crown for 2014.

However, when he peeled off his race shirt after that all-important second race, he revealed a mass of medical bandaging across his chest and abdomen.

Lamont had kept it very quiet, but he had been on an operating theatre table at Rotorua Hospital just two days earlier, there to undergo key-hole surgery to remove his appendix.

Heavily strapped and dosed up only with aspirin, he withstood the pain to achieve his results on Saturday and then opted out of the series' final battle, that race won instead by Mt Maunganui's Rhys Carter, and Lamont still won the title by 11 points from Dobbyn.

Australian visitor Jay Wilson finished third overall in the MX2 championship, 27 points behind Dobbyn.

The second incredible feature of Lamont's title win is that it signified the Husqvarna brand's first New Zealand title win in 14 years.

Not since Hamilton's Darryll King won the national 250cc title on a Husqvarna in 2000 has the brand finished on top of the podium.

However, the ease with which Lamont won the title this year suggests it might happen a little more frequently in the future, Lamont obviously hoping he can maintain the winning momentum and also enjoy success in Australia this season - the just-crowned New Zealand champion kicking off his 10-round Australian Motocross Championships campaign near Melbourne next weekend.

"I had just finished playing a round of golf on Thursday when I was driving home and had to stop by the road-side and vomit. I went to the doctor and he rushed me to hospital," Lamont explained.

"I was taken straight in for surgery at 9.30pm.

"The doctor said it would be okay for me to ride, so I just had everything strapped up.

"My legs felt like jelly in the second race on Saturday because I was trying to stand up a lot. I had to put a pretty hard pass on Jay Wilson in that race to push through for third place, to ensure I had enough points not to have to ride the final race.

"I went over and apologised to him afterwards for that.

"I was in a lot of pain and really glad I didn't have to endure another 20-minute race."

- © Fairfax NZ News