Team Shift Motul Suzuki racer, Daryl Hurley comfortably retained his Motocross Nationals Championship lead after finishing second in today's fourth round at Conondale (Qld).

Boasting an impressive strike rate of two wins and two second places from the opening four rounds of the series, the reigning Australian Motocross Champion maintains a 16-point advantage over his rivals.

Winning last year's Conondale event in convincing fashion, today's uncharacteristically slow starts and issues with lapped traffic combined to deny the New Zealander back-to-back victories at his favourite circuit.

Running in the top five in race one, Hurley slid out on the slippery, hard-packed Conondale surface during the opening lap and rejoined back in eighth place.

One lap later, Hurley was up into fourth spot and pushing hard to catch the leaders, and by half-distance was challenging Daniel Reardon for second place.

However, difficulty negotiating back-markers saw Hurley relegated to fourth place behind Reardon in third, where the pair stayed to the chequered flag.

The second 30-minute moto saw Hurley make a better start with Suzuki's RM-Z450 up into third place on the opening lap.

At the six-minute mark of race two, Hurley moved into second place and began whittling down the gap to Craig Anderson - the Suzuki star ultimately took the lead 25 minutes into the race.

However, Hurley was again baulked by lapped traffic in the closing laps which allowed Anderson to resume the lead with the Kiwi rider unable to assert his dominance in the final minutes.

Team Shift Motul Suzuki holds on to the coveted leader's red plate for the fourth consecutive round.

Marking the halfway point of the series, the next round of the 2006 Motocross Nationals will be battled out at Geelong's Barrabool Raceway (Vic) on Sunday 21 May.

DARYL HURLEY -
"I love this track and the RM-Z450 is working faultlessly - this should have been another win for Suzuki but it just wasn't to be our day.

"I didn't get good starts which made things more difficult than they needed to be, but I was the fastest rider out there and was able to reel in the guys ahead of me.

"We had great bike speed but I made a couple of mistakes and had some bad luck with lapped traffic.

"I go out to win every time, but I can't be too disappointed with second place; I've been on the podium at every round so far and consistency is the key with such a long championship."

JAY FOREMAN - TEAM MANAGER
"As always, Daryl rode extremely well, but our starts let us down today.

"There are a couple of things to work on before the next round. We need to get out of the gate better than we did today, instead of coming from behind and pushing so hard to make up ground - that's when mistakes happen.

"We are obviously still in a very strong position and we'll continue working hard to keep Suzuki on top."