Photo Epic: Pump Track - Crankworx Rotorua 2023

The Pump Track Challenge Presented by Torpedo7 kicks off a second weekend of Crankworx Rotorua with large crowds and exciting head-to-head racing.

In the Men's racing it all came down to the final run in an incredible matchup between the 2022 Pump Track World Champ Niels Bensink and Rotorua local Tuhoto-Ariki Pene. Despite taking a 0.078-second advantage in the second run Niels Bensink was dethroned by Tuhoto-Ariki Pene who performed an incredible gap on the stall wall feature to win by 0.1 seconds.

After the racing Tuhoto-Ariki Pene said: "I felt all good, just felt chill.

”I love riding underneath lights like this, it just amps the mood up a bit. It was pretty mean!”

Niels Bensink ended the day happy with a second place saying: "Honestly super stoked and proud of getting second place today.

“I think I left it all on the line and we were pushing so hard. The battles were super tight, so it was anyone’s game today and Tuhoto sent it, which rewarded him in the end.”

Reigning Queen of Crankworx, Caroline Buchanan, continues a series of gold medals this week as she proved unstoppable once again in pump track. Kialanai Hines fought hard to secure her own gold medal in Rotorua but the current overall 2023 leader took the win by 0.841 seconds.

Caroline Buchanan said following her victory: "It’s honestly just believing in yourself and by those final rounds you’ve just got to embrace the crowd.

“They were rowdy so how can you not step up and elevate. Those are the moments where you just elevate your lap times.

“It’s so good to have Kialani back. We’ve battled here many a times before and it always comes down to whoever wants it more on the day. We’re almost identical riders and it’s good to battle it out in Rotorua!”

Check out all the action from the Pump Track Challenge Presented by Torpedo7 below and you can find the full results here.

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Racing and Events Crankworx Photo Epics Crankworx Rotorua 2023 Pump Track