“ It was a long day on Sunday , very hot weather and no clouds , so it was really tough ,” said the 25-year-old Yearbury after the Nutbuster finale . “ Normally we ’ d do two or three laps here , because it ’ s generally wet and slippery , but we did five laps on Sunday and it took more than five hours to complete . I was cramping up and suffered from dehydration . I needed medical help at the finish , with a bag of fluids injected into me . “ I knew I couldn ’ t afford to make any mistakes , even though I didn ’ t know how close my rivals were to me . I rode conservatively at the start , but then pushed hard and opened up a bit of a gap . I finished five minutes ahead of Jake [ Whitaker ] at the finish . “ Last year I wasn ’ t able to defend my title from 2018 because I was riding in Romania and racing in the United States , so it ’ s great to win it back this year .”
Yearbury had also finished a close runnerup overall in the 2020 New Zealand Enduro Championships , which wrapped up in July , that series truncated because of the COVID-19 pandemic . Meanwhile , in the Silver Grade for this year ’ s extreme series , Taupo rider Wil Yeoman ( Yamaha ) continued to dominate as he had almost from the start of the series , easily winning the series ahead of Canterbury brothers Cody and Luke Corson ( both on KTM ) respectively . Whangamata ’ s Ethan Jameson ( Husqvarna ), New Plymouth ’ s Sam Parker ( KTM ) and Rerewhakaaitu ’ s Zach Sefuiva ( KTM ) respectively took the top three spots in the Bronze Grade .
108 KIWI RIDER