O ne of those stand-out individuals was surely Pukekawa teenager Tyler Brown . The 15-year-old had stormed to the top of the junior motocross pecking order when he won the premier 14-16 years ’ 250cc class at the 60th anniversary Honda New Zealand Motocross Grand Prix at Woodville in the last weekend of January and that was surely a massive hint as to what might be coming up just a week later at the Farmer Autovillage and Yamaha-sponsored junior nationals in the Bay of Plenty . It ’ s fair to say that Brown , a year 11 student at Onewhero Area School , had done his homework and it was now he who was doing the teaching , taking his MR Motorcycles Kawasaki KX250F to hand out a few lessons of his own at the junior
championships at Tect Park , about halfway between Tauranga and Rotorua , over the long Waitangi Day weekend . The 15-year-old won three of his five races over the three days and was a solid seven points ahead of his nearest rival , Hamilton ’ s Nick Westgate ( KTM ), with one race to go on the Sunday afternoon , but still it came down to that final race of the weekend before he could eventually clinch it . Brown crashed soon after the start of this final 250cc race and was passed by another of his main title rivals , Invercargill ’ s Jack Symon , the South Islander moving his new Kawasaki up from sixth at the start to claim third spot and Brown therefore had to dig deep just to hold on to his fourth position in that
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