From a photo of a kid with a mullet to double podiums at ASBK. The story behind Ryder Chamberlain's big break
Stu Avant went looking for a South Island kid worth backing. He found one.
By Kent Gray
Stu Avant confesses there was more than a little Canterbury bias behind his initial interest in Ryder Chamberlain, the 14-year-old road racer clearly determined to go places fast.
The Motorcycling New Zealand Hall-of-Famer is a founding member of the new Superbike Pathways Foundation (SPF), established by NZSBK promoter Mike Marsden with the likes of Avant, Aaron Slight and Paul Treacy to nurture Supersport 150 and 300 talent.
Now 71, Avant had a prerequisite, born of his own humble upbringing, when the SPF began discussing names to act as a pilot project for a scheme ultimately designed to reinvigorate the Kiwi superbike scene.
“We started yakking away about it, and I said, oh, is there someone in the South Island? Because I’m a Christchurch boy, and, you know, I just would really like to help someone from our way,” Avant told The Final Sector from the Gold Coast, the place he now calls home.
“And someone sent me a picture of this kiddie with a mullet, who spoke nicely, and I thought, all right. So, I sent some money over to get his bike prepped [for the 2026 NZSBK season], because it hadn’t been touched for a long time...”
What happened next was a chain reaction of small moments that combined to convince Avant that Chamberlain might just have what it takes to progress in the cut-throat world of road racing.
He flew to Christchurch and savoured a reunion of NZ motorcycling royalty at Ruapuna “…with Cros [Graeme Crosby] and Slighty and all the old team, barbecues, enjoyed ourselves.”
“But the main thing for me was to see if he [Chamberlain] was worthwhile, you know — because if he’s, like, 10 seconds off Hunter [eventual NZSBK Supersport 150 champion Hunter Charlett ahead of Chamberlain], then, you know, he’s not going to catch up in a minute.
“And by God, as the day went on, it was just very impressive. He was quick and intelligent and calm. Everything I think is a good starting point.”
Avant, who became the first international rider to win the fabled Northwest 200 in Northern Ireland in 1982, among a catalogue of domestic and offshore titles, was committed on project Ryder from the start. But when he discovered that Chamberlain had kicked on from Ruapuna to break the Teretonga 150 lap record in round two of NZSBK in Invercargill, another domino fell.
“Reading that he broke the lap record in Teretonga, which is a track that I know, and beat Hunter — who’s a fabulous kid, but he’d already done two years of the R1 Cup, doing the 150s — that meant Ryder was as good as, on the surface, on race pace anyway, as Hunter…”
Avant was so smitten, he sent a picture of Chamberlain to none other than Randy Mamola, considered by many to be one of the greatest talents in the sport to have never won the 500cc World Championship and today still heavily involved in MotoGP with LCR Honda. The American had stayed with Avant in Christchurch when he was an up-and-comer about the same age as Chamberlain and repaid that favour via a message to Avant during the Red Bull Grand Prix of America at the Circuit of the Americas in late March.
“He said, oh, Stuart, how’s this kid? I saw he’s running around in old leathers and old shit, and a month later he was at COTA, and he sent me a message. Oh, buddy, what size is he? I’ll get him some gear. And actually, you know what, a whole lot of Alpinestar gear turned up for him.”
Those are the connections the SPF can make, the doors the foundation can open.
The next step was to get Chamberlain across the Tasman to see how he stacked up against the continent’s best. Avant and wife Rebecca hosted Ryder and his father Stu Masters for the final round of the 2026 ASBK season last weekend with Avant taking a lead role in setting up the teen’s bike for the three Oceania Junior Cup races.
How did the kid, now sans mullet, quietly confident but not cocky, go? Beyond the combined expectation of both Stus – Avant and Masters – and better than the SPF could have hoped for.
After qualifying 10th, the Christchurch wildcard finished second in both helter-skelter OJC races and was so quick, it wouldn’t have surprised if he found the top step of the podium if the third race of the weekend hadn’t been red-flagged.
“You’ve got to understand, we went to a track he’d never seen, an environment [OJC] that he obviously didn’t know anything about, on a bike with different tyres, because he runs Bridgestones at home, and he had Dunlops on, Öhlins rear shock, where he normally just rides with a standard shock, and every time I said, how does it feel? He said, ‘that’s fine’. Any different? ‘No, not really.’ Do you know what I mean? It was just, wow, this is good.
“He was just bloody— he was just a machine.”
For the record, the wee Canterbury “machine” quietly loved mixing it with his Aussie peers. Nearly as much as Masters, Avant and Marsden at QR and all the Kiwis cheering back home.
“Yeah, it was pretty fun,” Chamberlain said. “It was super hectic and just, like, crazy compared to New Zealand because there would be, like, three of us in a group in New Zealand where there was, like, nine of us [at Queensland Raceway],” Chamberlain said.
We bet you’re fizzing about another crack in ASBK? “Definitely. I can’t wait to get over there already. It’s definitely boosted my confidence.”
Which begs the obvious question. What’s next for the kid who has proven his speed in two races against boys who have spent a season or more in the hustle and bustle of OJC, tuning their 150s and learning the tracks Chamberlain has only ever heard of? How does the SPF double-down on its investment?
“Ryder was focused the whole weekend on what he wanted to do, and I just thought, you could go somewhere, kid,”
Avant, Marsden and co. are working on that already with an eye to supporting Chamberlain through the full, rejigged 2026-27 ASBK season. But likely not in OJC.
“It’s really early, but my thoughts are that — if you haven’t done the other rounds, and you’re just as quick as everyone else or quicker than the best, then you don’t go and do it again. You just go up a division,” Avant said.
Masters concurs, and with Avant and the SPF’s help, that should see Chamberlain campaigning in the Australian bLU cRU R3 Cup from October. Combined with a promised ride in the Supersport 300 and potentially Supersport 150 classes (if there are sufficient starters) at NZSBK from January-March, and Chamberlain will have ample chances to progress next summer.
“If we can do the 300s in NZ, and if we can get it together to do the Australian series, then he’ll go home to New Zealand going real quick, because if you go abroad… you come home a second a lap quicker just through the experience and the confidence,” Avant said.
“It would be a learning year, because the R3s, you’d probably have to do a second year to be real quick on them,” he continued before tailing off with “maybe, maybe not…”
What Avant was musing internally was the realisation that Chamberlain has already shown he can be quick from the get-go on an unfamiliar Yamaha with foreign tyres and on new tracks.
Even Masters was surprised with the results in Willowbank.
“I was a bit blown away, to be honest. Still am,” Dad said. “Still hasn’t really sunk in. I didn’t expect the podium. I knew he was capable of it, but I know how fast those boys are over there, so... I was going to be pretty happy with the top 10.”
Like many a parent in junior road-racing, Masters is funding his son’s dream on the proverbial smell of an oily rag. Without the SPF, Queensland Raceway wouldn’t have been possible, and he couldn’t be more indebted to Avant and wife Rebecca who not only helped trackside, but took Ryder out for dinner and to an amusement arcade in Surfers Paradise as a reward for his great weekend.
“He’s from Christchurch as well,” Masters said of Avant, “…so he’d done it all when he was young. He knows the struggle, I suppose. Sort of coming from nothing. We don’t have a lot of money and stuff like that so it’s—without those guys helping out, Stu and Rebecca and all the SPF team, we wouldn’t have been able to do that this weekend.”
And without the SPF, there wouldn’t be so much momentum around a young Kiwi rider.
Chamberlain’s “beautiful attitude”, as Avant put it, made it easy for him to be involved. The personal payback was a “bloody satisfying weekend” that has done nothing to quell that Canterbury bias.
You see, you can take the boy [Avant] out of Christchurch but good luck removing that red and black eye-patch. The kicker is that Chamberlain, like Charlett before him, is living up to the provincial hype, gratefully and politely making the most of every opportunity thrown at him.
This won’t be a linear progression, it never is in road racing. But Chamberlain, and by association the SPF, is on his way. And that, for the future of NZSBK, the sport in New Zealand and a good kid, is a very encouraging thing.
“Ryder was focused the whole weekend on what he wanted to do, and I just thought, you could go somewhere, kid,” Avant said.
“Who knows where? I said to him, you might end up going back to school and becoming a doctor would be much better, but if you have an opportunity and you take it, you might end up here [ASBK], you might end up in Southeast Asia, you might end up in Europe, you know.
“The chances of that are low. There’s a one in a million chance, but what did old Jim Carrey say [in the 1994 screwball comedy] Dumb and Dumber? ‘So, you’re saying there’s a chance? One in a million, I’ll take it’.”
Ryder Chamberlain doesn’t mind those odds either.