Dale Finch joins DP Racing Team – Written by Dale for Kiwi Rider after winning the NZ Supersport 600 Championship

As a child I spent the week looking forward to going out to Ruapuna speedway with my father. I always took interest in the senior solo bikes that used to race on the infield track.

At 8 years old one night I had gone into the pits on my own and organised for myself to have a ride on a junior bike at Moore park speedway. I had always been on dirt bikes since I was 4 and had raced motorcross in the 85cc class but financially our family couldn’t afford it. So my dad took interest in speedway as it was just a Honda xr125cc motor and he could build the chassis himself so it was cheap. I started to show potential and I began to move up through the ranks. As a kid i was privileged to be taught by speedway legend Ronnie Moore.  You can only ride a senior 500cc solo at 16years old but Ronnie on my behalf wrote a letter to SNZ for a training dispensation. This allowed me to practice on the bigger bike. So when i entered my first national championship at 16 I was well tuned and managed to come away 2nd place behind Andrew Barge who had been racing premier league in England and in front of now 10x NZ champ Jason Bunyan who also was a elite league professional rider in England.

The same year I had a huge crash at Moorepark where the bike hit a rut coming out of the corner sending me into the wooden fence. This broke my back in 3 places and a lot of internal damage. I spent a month on my back and had to go through rehab to walk again.

This scared both me and my family. But with 3 years off the speedway bike I decided lesson learnt and it was time to give it another go. On my first year returning to the sport I won the national under21 championship. I also won it again the following year which qualified me into the a world under 21 qualifying round in Germany. With a lot of support from the speedway community and fund raising from my mother we made the trip to Europe. I scored 4 points in Germany and to qualify through to the next round I would of needed at least 8. For me this was still a huge achievement, we were on the back foot from when we got there little to no track time on European tracks and with it being winter in NZ I hadn’t been riding at home before we left.

With the years I had off the bike with my injuries at 17 I had missed the boat with getting a national league ride in England (foot in the door) because the rules had changed with needing a British passport.

With the help of sponsors, Jason and Zoe Bunyan who was racing premier league at the time in England  I went back to try ride second half’s which where run after a league meeting to help show promoters what I could do hoping this could land me a professional ride. Unfortunately this didn’t come to anything. The 6 point average needed for a commonwealth rider was just to high for someone with no league racing experience.

I come back to New Zealand and carried of with my speedway here. I never won a open class national championship but come runner up a few more times. the experience of Jason was just simply to high for me. We would only do 10 meetings a year compared to him riding a few times a week in England.

Due to the drop off with speedway riders in New Zealand I wanted to give something else a go.

I started racing motorcross again and finished up with the podium placings in the local events. With the birth of my oldest son Carter it was simply too hard for us to go out to motorcross as a family. 5am starts in the middle of nowhere with frozen winter mornings and mud.

My Dad suggested that I have a go on the Road circuit as it was only 10minutes from my house meaning my partner Ali and Carter could come out later to support me and she wouldn’t have to deal with the mud.

So I purchased a 2007 Daytona 675.

It Didn’t take long for this to change from a hobby to something I wanted to be the best in New Zealand at. Jayden Scott was also a local racer who seen potential in me  and helped me race at all the local events and even put my name forward to Rod Price who run the Helicraft MV Augusta 675 who took me onboard racing at national level where we had some top 5 placings in my rookie season. The second season on the MV Augusta the bike had some mechanical issues at round 3 of 5. They decided to pull the pin for the remainder of the season. Jayden offered to help me to race my own bike which was now a 2013 Daytona 675 for the final two rounds. This meant I was on my own in a van with a bike travelling to the north island. To be honest it was a disaster. On my own with little experience with setting up a road race bike competing against factory teams. With mechanical issues and crashes I finished 2 of 6 races. But to both Jayden and I it was all just a learning curve. With all the bad luck we were still positive and took away that I qualified on the front row for both rounds so we knew I had the pace and ability needed and we just had to put everything together.

I carried forward a lot of skills from speedway. Mainly naturally letting the bike move and Slide underneath me without tensing. But it also taught me bad habits like making split decisions instantly and trying to win the race in the first lap. A speedway race goes for one minute and road race can go for twenty five minutes.

When I was in the north island on my own I became good friends with Ashton Hughes who was also on a privateer triumph. even tho we were competing against each other  he took me under his wing teaching me his extensive experience with road racing and triumphs.

Jayden and I decided that we would put together our own National Level race team which is now the well known Scott Structural Road Racing team and we knew if we wanted to win we need Ashton on the team also.

So over the winter Jayden went to work building a team and getting sponsors onboard. While I went to the track with my brother setting up my bike, building race craft and battling with local legends like Dennis Charlotte and Jake Lewis on smaller cheaper to run bikes.

The 2020 national race series gave us more hope of becoming national champions but unfortunately wasn’t to be that year. My bike had burst a radiator hose at Ruapuna for round 1 of the Friday practice causing the motor to overheat and damaged the head. This put us on the back foot for the series from the start but we did have the pace.

With me and Ashton both bringing home 9 podium places with myself coming 3rd overall in the championship. Not a bad effort considering we had 3 dnfs.

Going into the 2021 season, the winter months were spent training before work on my mountain bike then evenings at yoga. I had a fresh motor built by Ashton and the plan was try to not put many race Kms on it and save it for the nationals.

As soon as the summer hit we got onto the race bike testing at Ruapuna. Unfortunately for Ashton he suffered from a crash badly breaking his elbow which would put him out for the rest of the year. Fortunately for me i had a top mechanic In my pits focussing on me and my bike.

The firsts two rounds for me was a clean sweep winning 6 from 6 races with some races over a 5 second margin.

Round 3 at Hampton downs was cancelled due to covid lockdown. I went into the final round at Taupo with a 32 point lead. All I needed todo was finish races. I again qualified pole position and finished the round 2,3,2

I had great pace at this track and potential to win was there but the aim was to stay on the bike and bring home the championship for me and the team

Blue and black jerseys were the majority at every round and everybody done there bit to contribute to the championship win. It was the most rewarding feeling to have everybody celebrating as they had won themselves.

With the 600cc challenge completed the team and myself looked into running a superbike for the 2022 season. We found it extremely difficult to get any factory support to pursue this challenge and the cost was simply too high, so we decided todo what not many riders have and defend the 600 championship while in the background working towards the superbike.

With the Covid burden arising again which threw all our 2022 plans up in the air.

Jayden got a phone call from Grant Shivers who had recently built 2x brand new superbikes and was looking for a rider. This was exactly what we were looking for. Someone with passion for the sport who simply wants to be out there getting amongst it and having a good time while doing it. From the 2021 season we know this is the formula to success and I’m really looking forward to giving myself the best advantage possible.