MOIR CLAIMS THE MA
Words & Photos: Andy McGechan/bikesportnz.com
H
e’s won there before, but never the
main trophy and so it probably surprised
nobody when Taupo’s Scotty Moir won
this year’s 27th annual Honda Battle of
the Streets bike race meeting in Paeroa.
Moir finished ahead of Glen Eden’s
Daniel Mettam and Lower Hutt’s Jay Lawrence in
the premier Formula One class, the three men on
similar Suzuki GSX-R1000 bikes and each of them on
scintillating form on the tricky public street circuit.
There are few better than Moir on a street
circuit and he demonstrated that when he
won the Formula One class in the annual pre-
nationals Suzuki Series, which wrapped up
with the iconic street races at Whanganui on
Boxing Day. He looked again to be unstoppable
on the streets of the Thames Valley town.
The 33-year-old father-of-one won the day’s first
1000cc Formula Paeroa race by more than six
seconds from the 29-year-old Lawrence. He then
backed that up by winning the all-capacities King
of the Streets feature race, the Honda-sponsored
event’s signature race, this time passing the
chequered flag two seconds before Lawrence.
Moir’s next outing, the second of the day’s two
Formula Paeroa races, quickly developed into a two-
Scotty Moir
rider arm-wrestle, with he and Mettam separated by
less than a bike length through-out the 10-lap affair.
Mettam eventually won that final 1000cc race by
1/400th of a second from Moir, that result boosting
the 21-year-old into the No.2 spot overall for the day.
Moir’s national superbike championship campaign
has not gone so well, with his crashing out of
the day at round one at Christchurch in early
18 KIWI RIDER