Winning Start To 2025 For Honda Star Bourke

The pieces in the puzzle are starting to fall into place, with new Honda team-mates Josiah Natzke and Cobie Bourke each ending on the podium at the weekend.

The racing conditions were extreme and contrasting for riders at the 62nd annual Honda New Zealand Motocross Grand Prix at Woodville at the weekend, the first major event for the 2025 season.

Scorching sun beat down on the junior racers during the first of two days of the event on Saturday and it had looked to be more of the same for the senior men racing the following day too, until a weather front blew in to drench the farmland course, turning the track into a slippery skating rink.

Tauranga’s Bourke had a slow start to the day, by his high standards, finishing fourth in the opening race.

But then he got better as the day progressed and finished runner-up to Oparau’s national MX2 champion James Scott in the next outing, before racing away to a solid win in the third and deciding MX2 race of the weekend.

When the points were added up, Bourke had done enough to win the day, finishing just a solitary point ahead of Scott, with Opotiki’s multi-time former national champion Cody Cooper claiming third overall, 11 points further back.

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The 20-year-old Bourke had shown great promise at the annual Honda Summercross event near Whakatane just after Christmas, winning the first MX2 race of the day there, until a crash in race two curtailed his efforts and he had to withdraw.

It was an obviously rejuvenated and recovered Bourke on show at Woodville.

“I’ve got three weeks to strengthen even more before the (four-round) nationals begin and then, immediately after the final round of that series in March, I’ll be off to race in Australia.”

Kiwi international Natzke – the young man from Mount Maunganui now resettled back in New Zealand after a 2024 season where he came agonisingly close to winning the national title in Canada, but forced to settle for runner-up – had just signed on to race for The Motul Honda Race Team a few weeks before the Woodville event and he said he was “desperate for a little bike time” with a busy 2025 season looming ahead of him.

However, a terrible crash at the Honda Summercross event in late December stripped away any chance that he’d get the desired time in the saddle and, although his training had only been limited, he turned up at Woodville still confident that he could deliver.

Natzke finished third in both the first two of three races in the premier MX1 class, with fellow Kiwi internationals Maximus Purvis (Mangakino) and Hamish Harwood (West Auckland) finishing ahead of him.

But then the heavy rain arrived later in the afternoon, slowing everything down and pushing the focus more towards throttle control, line selection and perhaps a little luck.

Natzke took his Honda CRF450R straight to the front immediately after the start of the third and final MX1 race of the weekend and he never looked back.

At the end of the 10-lapper, Natzke had built a winning margin of nearly seven seconds over runner-up Harwood and was nearly two minutes ahead of Purvis, the man from Mangakino obviously well aware that his winning the day’s first two MX1 races had given him a huge points buffer and he could afford simply to circulate.

Points earned from the two early wins therefore boosted Purvis to the overall win, consistency earned Harwood the No.2 spot and race three winner Natzke had to settle for third overall, the Honda man eventually finishing just one point behind Harwood.

“I guess I saved the best for last,” the 26-year-old Natzke smiled with muddy teeth. “For the first two races I was just trying to get comfortable on the new bike. I knew that if I could get the lead in the mucky final race, that might be enough to get the win and that’s what happened.

“The bike is good and we’re just doing more work on getting the suspension set up for me. I think I’ll be going better and better from here onwards.”

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