bike damaged like that , but I didn ’ t have a lot of choice ,” said the 26-year-old Cambridge builder . “ The crash was in the day ’ s first ‘ special test ’ and it stunned me a bit . I struggled to get a flow going with my riding after that . I went okay , but not brilliant .” But even when Yearbury is not at his best , he ’ s still a lot better than so many others in the competition and he managed to end the day at Martinborough third overall , finishing behind Whanganui ’ s 2019 outright champion Seth Reardon ( Yamaha YZ250FX ) and Buxton . Fortunately for Yearbury , this was easily enough for him to get the job done and he could therefore celebrate winning his first national enduro championships outright .
Buxton finished the series runner-up , with Reardon , Oparau ’ s James Scott ( Honda CRF450X ) and Taupo ’ s Wil Yeoman ( Yamaha YZ125X ) rounding out the top five . Yearbury ’ s finish tally for the series was 2-1-1-2-3 , while Buxton ’ s was 1-3-2-1-2 and Reardon scored 9-4-4-4-1 finishes . Yearbury also added icing to his cake by claiming the over-301cc four-stroke class win . He is current and two-time winner of the parallel-but-separate New Zealand Extreme Off-Road Championships , but never the enduro nationals and that ’ s probably largely due to his competing overseas in past years . With COVID putting a crimp on international travel , it ’ s likely we ’ ll see Yearbury ’ s name feature a little more
32 KIWI RIDER