Star of the future

**Shaun** · 6th December 2007, 10:36

Originally Posted by Ivan

Good on you,

Awsome to see hope all goes well for the nationals.

Good luck for the ride on the 600 that would be a blast to ride, and with Shauns help itl be ultra fast

Would you be interested in coming to the south Island for the champ rounds and bring your 125 with you, and have a ride on the unofficuall Friday only at the sth Island tracks so you can learn them, and be a helper for the 2 other riders I am helping out this year.

You pay your own living only, transport etc FREE

**speed63** · 6th December 2007, 12:23

Originally Posted by Shaun

As of this morning, Sam will also ride my 600 on the friday free practice only in the south Island to get to know the 600, and we may do the races in the NTh Island, depending on how the points are looking in the Pro Twins class

Well Done that man

**Shaun** · 6th December 2007, 12:37

Originally Posted by speed63

Well Done that man

Just my way of giving a bit back to the group that helped me so much

**Ivan** · 6th December 2007, 17:13

Shaun PM on its way

**Shaun** · 8th December 2007, 11:43

Sam had a test day at Timaru yesterday, with some advice from John Hepburn, who was very impressed with his attitude, and today, is racing in Ch CH, and Dom Jones, is being helpfull to him with advice and a bed, cheers guys.

**Robert Taylor** · 8th December 2007, 17:50

Originally Posted by Shaun

Sam had a test day at Timaru yesterday, with some advice from John Hepburn, who was very impressed with his attitude, and today, is racing in Ch CH, and Dom Jones, is being helpfull to him with advice and a bed, cheers guys.

I concur about Sams attitude, for someone with such a quiet and polite demeanour he sure gets the job done on the track. I just pray that there is not too much pressure of expectation placed upon him as he has been getting the job done in a no fuss way already.

**oyster** · 9th December 2007, 16:40

At Ruapuna yesterday Sam showed he had a good head by taking his time and working through the new track carefully. A lot of people helped him and in the last race he came in second behind Tom Bos, our local 16 year old who pretty well dominates Pro Twin / F3 outright. Good to see Tom making freinds with him too, helping out and these are the foundations of the future for these youngsters.
There were other young stars there too. The 125GP class had a grid of 13, only two were over 18 years old! 14 year old Nick Cain made a stunning debut
going straight to 43's in his second ever 125 race.

**Ivan** · 9th December 2007, 19:48

Shaun I start full time tommrow working so It looks liek I am coming down south I have my DIrt bike up for sale to to also fund this

I am guessing I am going to need about 2000 dollars in the bank.

And I turn 18 whilst we are down there Timaru I will be 18 haha

**Shaun** · 10th December 2007, 09:42

Originally Posted by oyster

At Ruapuna yesterday Sam showed he had a good head by taking his time and working through the new track carefully. A lot of people helped him and in the last race he came in second behind Tom Bos, our local 16 year old who pretty well dominates Pro Twin / F3 outright. Good to see Tom making freinds with him too, helping out and these are the foundations of the future for these youngsters.
There were other young stars there too. The 125GP class had a grid of 13, only two were over 18 years old! 14 year old Nick Cain made a stunning debut
going straight to 43's in his second ever 125 race.

Thanks for that Sir

**denill** · 11th December 2007, 08:47

Originally Posted by Robert Taylor

I concur about Sams attitude, for someone with such a quiet and polite demeanour he sure gets the job done on the track.

But they are generally the FAST ones, eh. The mouthy ones are in my experience just 'show ponies'. In all sports, but particularly motor sport. Best wishes to Sam & Shaun.

**evol mas** · 12th December 2007, 18:49

Sam Love
South island Report
7th 8th /12/07

Friday 7th December
Timaru
Testing / practice

I woke to a fine day in Christchurch and a two hour trip to levels .the weather varied on the trip to Timaru but thankfully I arrived at the track to a cloudless, windless day. I was quite lucky, as there weren’t many people at the track which allowed for lots of track time. The first twenty minute session I just took it easy finding where the track went trying to work out the basics of my reference points and apexes. Luckily Shaun Harris had organized John Hepburn (a local legend) to come to the track and give me some pointers which helped out a lot. John seemed to know the track inside out and backwards, every piece of info he gave me I put into practice and made my lines a lot smoother and consistently brought my lap times down. John left at around lunch time as he was otherwise occupied but I kept applying the tips and tricks he had taught me throughout the afternoon gaining more speed and breaking latter with every lap. By the end of the day I had done over 80 laps and had destroyed a set of tires, which was unfortunate as I had to race on them the next day at ruapuna. Levels raceway is now my new favorite track because of its fast sweeping corners and long durations of lean time

Saturday 8th December
Ruapuna
King of Canterbury

Saturday morning was a little bit overcast and had a slight breeze. Every one had told me that if I liked levels ruapuna would be easy, but it was far from it. I found it much more technical to learn as most of the corners link up in a set of 3 or 4 so if you get one wrong you put yourself offline for the rest.
In practice I followed some of the slower riders around and tried to find the rite lines to take. This was probably the wrong thing to do as they were obviously slow for a reason. In the first race I was still taking my time to work out lines and passing maneuvers on the slower riders which helped out later in the day. In the second race I started further up on the grid and followed a few of the faster f3 and pro twin’s bikes around gaining a few places to get a fifth. In the final race I started on the second row and got a great start getting pole into the first corner and held first place for half a lap before being relegated to second by local young gun tom. We traded places a few times before coming up on some lap riders on the infield.tom used his local knowledge to get past them quickly but I got held up by them and had to settle for second.

I thoroughly enjoyed my trip down south and look forward to the nationals in January

Big thanks to all of my sponsors

Prime explosives
N&D natural health
ACR Fiberglass
Switch electrical
Pirelli
AGV sport
Repsol
EBC breaks
KBC
EK chain
VAZ sprocket
Ohlin’s (Kerry & Robert)

And a special thanks to every one who helped me out down south, especially

The Jones family
John Hepburn
Shaun Harris