T here ’ s a pretty good chance that Taupo ’ s Bruce McLaren Motorsport Park is Mitch Rees ’ “ happy place ”. The COVID-19 pandemic-shortened 2021 New Zealand Superbike Championships wrapped up there in mid March and it was possibly the Whakatane man who was celebrating the loudest and the longest when the fumes had drifted away late on that Sunday afternoon . To cut a long story short , the Honda rider is our new champion in the premier Superbike class , the Rees surname something we ’ ve been used to reading about over the years with his now 53-year-old father Tony Rees a three-time former New Zealand Superbike champion ( in 2017 , 2005 and 2001 ). Tony Rees , a Motorcycling New Zealand Hall of Fame inductee in 2018 , was also national Open Sport Production Class on three occasions ( in 1997 , 1998 and 1999 ) as well as claiming the main prize on numerous occasions at Whanganui ’ s annual Cemetery Circuit races on Boxing Day and at the now-defunct Battle Of The Streets events in Paeroa .
But this year ’ s NZSBK series was all about Tony Rees ’ two sons , the 28-year-old Mitch and his younger brother Damon Rees . The 25-year-old Damon won the New Zealand 600cc Supersport title in 2017 and was perhaps favourite to win the Superbike crown when he arrived at Taupo ’ s third and final round in March . Clearly the fastest man in New Zealand in 2020 when he won five of six races at the start of that series , Damon Rees abandoned his 2020 title bid to instead pursue glory in the United Kingdom , leaving Christchurch ’ s Alastair Hoogenboezem ( Yamaha ) and Taupo ’ s Scotty Moir ( Suzuki ) to scrap it out for the title . Hoogenboezem and Moir each claimed two race wins in the superbike class last season ( the trio of Damon Rees , Hoogenboezem and Moir sharing all nine wins between them ), but Hoogenboezem took the crown by a scant three points from Moir , with Damon Rees finishing third , just another three points further back ( and this was despite him missing a third of the pandemic-shortened series , the 2020
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