PAVLETICH WRAPS IT UP

Auckland’s Paul Pavletich doesn’t know when to stop, and why should he?

The 56-year-old multi-time former national road-racing champion from Ararimu, near the Bombay Hills, continues to pile up the titles, long after many a lesser man would have gracefully eased their way into retirement.

This time Pavletich has won another Auckland Motorcycle Club championship, in the Pro Twins series, and he did it by dominating the day at the fourth round of five at Hampton Downs at the weekend, giving him the title with a round to spare.

Pavletich is a former CEO of Motorcycling New Zealand, the sport’s governing body, and he has won every class that he has entered over his long and illustrious racing career, a career he rekindled in 2010 after an 11-year hiatus.

“I’ve won in every class, except for the 250cc class, because I am just too tall and heavy for those bikes,” he laughed.

The Pro Twins is a series open to any twin-cylinder racing machine and Pavletich raced a KTM 1290R Super Duke.

These machines are known in the industry as the “BEAST”, due to their incredible power-to-weight ratio.

The KTM bike is an Austrian machine and produces over 160 hp at the rear wheel and weighs a mere 160kg.

Pavletich’s machine is tuned by his race team of over 35 years, including his brother, Mark Pavletich, and good friend Craig Griffin.

Pavletich dominated the series with 10 wins from 11 starts, his bike shod with Metzeler tyres, although strong challenges did come from rivals Brendan Holland, riding an Aprilia bike, and Malcolm Bell, riding a Ducati Millie 1000.

Holland is a three-time former Pro Twin series winner.

At the latest round of racing at the weekend, internationally-recognised Kiwi rider Steven Briggs made an appearance on a KTM990, part of his preparation to race in the United States.

Pavletich has a 10 from 11 race wins record this season, also beaten only once – by Stephen Leggett.

Pavletich has now won 14 Auckland Motorcycle Club championships on motorcycles and has also won four car series titles.

He credits his long run of successes on his team and on faultless machine preparation.

“Motorsport is all about the details and preparations,” said Pavletich.

“For me, the riding has always been the easy part. You have to do the hard yards even before you turn up.”

Pavletich said he would love to win one more bike and car series and then sponsor a fast up-and-coming rider in the future.

Meanwhile, looking a reasonably safe bet to win the Supersport/F2 class in this series is Daniel Mettam. With 150 points still on offer – Mettam has a 134 point lead as both his main rivals Nathanael Diprose and Aaron Hassan did not compete on Sunday. Mettam has 10 wins from 11 starts this season, having only been beaten once (by national champion Alastair Hoogenboezem).

In the Superbike (Formula Auckland) class, Travis Moan scored a hat-trick of race wins, having parked his regular BMW up, in favour of Kawasaki ZX-10R power on Saturday.

The Superlite (F3) class again had the majority of the action.

Glen Orwin and Tim Johnson both did not compete on Sunday, while Gavin Veltmeyer was scuttled in practice when Nigel Lennox fell at the hairpin, taking him down also.

Veltmeyer persevered however, repairing the SV650 and coming out later in the day to win both race two and three, to launch himself into title contention.

Scott Findlay won race one, while new national Pro Twin 650 champion Ben Rosendaal took over the Superlite points lead – by just three points over Veltmeyer.

The Hyosung Cup class was all action, with two wins to Mettam, whilst Jacob Stroud put in a commendable performance on the X4r. The finale will see a tough battle between Mettam and Diprose to decide the Cup title.

The double-points fifth and final round of the Auckland Motorcycle Club’s series is set for Hampton Downs on April 26.

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