BRITISH SUPERSTAR
ADDS HIS NAME TO
ILLUSTRIOUS TROPHY
e may have started off a little slowly
but, by the end of the 2018 Suzuki
Series, British motorcycling superstar
Peter Hickman showed he was very fast
indeed.
A first-time visitor to New Zealand, the 31-year-
old from Lincolnshire could hardly have been
expected to dominate the leading Kiwis, each
of them with many seasons under their wheels
on the series’ various venues – Taupo’s Bruce
McLaren Motorsport Park, Manfeild Circuit
Chris Amon in Feilding and then the public
streets of Whanganui that make up the famous
Cemetery Circuit raceway for the final round on
Boxing Day.
But Hickman demonstrated he was a fast
learner.
He is also the 2018 Isle of Man champion and,
so, perhaps there really should have been no
surprise that he would be a potent force in the
glamour Formula One class.
He managed only 11th overall at the series
opener at Taupo on December 9 – thanks to a
little run-in with another rider (Damon Rees)
and off-track excursion in one of his two races
there – but then Hickman scored impressive
back-to-back wins at Manfeild a week later and,
with that, he rocketed up to third in the series
standings.
His Isle of Man experience really kicked into
play at Whanganui on December 26.
No stranger to racing at break-neck speeds
close to kerbs, gutters, telephone poles and
hay bales which showed when he took to the
streets of Whanganui for the traditional series
finale on Boxing Day.
Hickman finished eighth and then third in his
two F1 races at Whanganui, enough to see him
28 KIWI RIDER
rise from third overall and to settle for series
runner-up in the class, but even better was still
to come.
Stuck in traffic at the start of the 10-lap Robert
Holden Memorial feature race, Hickman had
his work cut out.
Taupo’s Scotty Moir, the F1 class winner for the
series last year who had just taken his Suzuki
GSX-R1000 to make it two-in-a-row by also
winning the 2018 edition, was out in front in
the feature race and fast disappearing into the
distance, setting a lap record in the process,
while Hickman was back in about seventh
position.
Hickman dramatically cut his way towards the
front and, on the final lap he pounced on Moir,
catching the Bay of Plenty man unaware and
snatching the win just metres from the end.
Everybody in the large crowd was on their
feet and cheering. They had been royally
entertained by road-racing royalty.
“I was too far back at the start here because of
the lack of practice [on this circuit],” Hickman
explained.
“I did six laps in practice and five laps in
qualifying [on the Cemetery Circuit] and that’s
just not enough. I was a long way back on the
grid, in 11th, in both the F1 races.
“I got baulked a little bit at the start of the
Robert Holden race and Scotty (Moir), to be
fair, had just absolutely cleared off. He was well
gone.
“I came through the pack and when I got near
the front there were probably only two laps left.
I was really in the groove and doing my own
thing and then I saw that I was closing in loads
on Scotty.