VICTORIAN ATV racer Mitch Van Vliet has finally won the 2014 Yamaha Australian ATV championships held last weekend at Horsham, aboard his Yamaha YZF450.
After dominating the recent Victorian state championship, held at the same venue, Van Vliet entered the national championship as the favourite and looking for his first national win. Despite not winning a national crown in six previous attempts, he entered the meeting confident of a good result and determined to cap off what has been an impressive year for the Yamaha rider.
In the five motos contested to determine the champion, Mitch finished with two firsts, two seconds and a third to claim his first Australian ATV Championship as he crossed the finish line of the final moto with both arms raised in celebration.
“This has been a long time coming,” Mitch said at the end of racing. “I have tried to win this thing several times but for whatever reason, it hasn’t happened until now.”
A stoked Van Vliet said he was happy to finally get the win, and couldn’t thank his family and sponsors enough for their support.
“My bike was perfect all weekend and I felt like it was my championship to lose and I wasn’t going to let that happen,” he said.
It was a huge weekend for the Van Vliet family with four members of the family competing in the National championships. While Mitch took out the national crown, brothers Harrison and Jake claimed third and fourth respectively making it a family 1-3-4 finish in the Pro division.
And just to add some icing on the cake, the youngest family member, Cooper, took the win in the 13-16 years division making it two championship wins for the family.
“Our goal was to finish 1-2-3 in the Pro class,” Mitch went on to say, “But we just missed out on that. Still, 1-3-4 is a good result and with Cooper winning his class, it was a successful weekend for us and should make the trip home a bit more fun.”
