The New Zealand Farm Jam has been run and won for the 3rd year and second that I've come over.  The course was bigger, the were more riders and there was no wind! What more could you ask for.  Well, maybe not falling off and breaking your collarbone would be a start.

With two of the pro's out of the comp, Nick Franklin crashed Thursday in practice and I crashed Friday in a photoshoot which left only 3 Aussies to take it to the gang of NZ rippers.  Joe Sheppard, Jake Bowen and Rhys Hillier were getting used to the the rolling green compound with the kiwi riders Levi Sherwood, Dan Frew, Liston Borrie, Trent Garton, Blake Oconnor and Callam Shaw.

The competition was tough as Levi Sherwood, fresh off a knee reconstruction made short work of the entire course.  He was showing why he's literally one of the best riders in the world with Shaolin, Stripper and Seat Grab Indy flips and difficult tricks off the technical dirt jumps that others weren't even able to trick.  Levi did however crash a seat grab indy flip and ate dirt hard.  He managed to get up with only a bleeding nose which shows sometimes youth on your side counts as he bounced well.

Levi went on to win the competition with night and day between him and the rest of the field.  In second place was Jake Bowen who really turned it on in the final few jam's, pulling out big double nac's off the dirt jumps and supermans over the 150ft hill jump.

Rhys Hillier took out 3rd place just narrowly over Joe Sheppard.  Both guys were riding hard and Rhys managed to take it out by being the 2nd only rider to flip at the competition off the 75ft ramp which managed to suck all the speed out of the rotation.  Joe was doing well pulling out all the stops on all the dirt jumps and showing why he has some skills as a racer in his past life.

Blake Oconnor was a real stand-out for the Kiwi home-town kid taking out 5th place.  He was doing big tricks over the 4th gear 120 and 150ft jumps which noone else was doing.  A stellar performance was shown by Liston Borrie who I believed should have been on the podium as he tore the compound up.  He's only a young kiwi, but he was styling up the course with the best of them.  Hopefully he comes back again next year and get some more experience to take it out.

Dan Frew was the brain-child of the whole event and even managed to swing a leg over his Brent Scammel Motorcycles CRF450 and style it up.  Easily being the most stylish rider on his home turf it wasn't enough to crack the top 5, but definitely an honorable mention for Dan.  Thanks so much for your work to get the competition working and running around like a chook with your head cut off for the entire weekend.

So now I'm just waiting 11 more months so we can come back here and do it all again for 2011 Farm Jam.  I said it last year, that it's the best competition I've ridden, and even watching from the sidelines with Nick Franklin both busted up this year it's still the best comp I've done.