visualising what ’ s going to happen . I ’ ll sit in a chair , close my eyes for five minutes and imagine the race , all the jumps , all the corners . I ’ ll think about what went wrong in the race before . I always want to win , but it gets harder now that I ’ m older and I ’ m riding a 2005-model bike . “ The likes of ( young Australian superstars ) Jett and Hunter Lawrence have a crew of ‘ spotters ’ out on the tracks in the US , watching out for track developments for them . Riders here could have mum and dad , brothers and sisters watching out for lines for them . “ At the GPs , I always had some really good people looking out for things ... we didn ’ t have video cameras back then that could be brought back to the camper , but we did have spotters giving us reports . Joel Smets had about 10 spotters , all around the track , bringing back advice for him and that was always more than we had . “ To the young ones today I say it all starts with a dream . Do you want to be world champion , American champion , Australian champion , national champion or just club champion ? Then just save up , work hard , put plans in place and go and make those dreams happen .” The likes of Christchurch ’ s Dylan Walsh , Tauranga ’ s Josiah Natzke and Waitoki ’ s Cole
Davies are all currently giving it a crack in Europe or the United States and it is hopefully just a matter of time before we see other Kiwi hopefuls joining them on the world stage . Meanwhile , as it is interesting to note Levi Townley ’ s 85cc class success ( in The Netherlands in July ) is New Zealand ’ s first junior motocross world title , it is also worth recognising that even such a small country as New Zealand had already produced an incredible seven senior motocross world championship winners in the past ( with 12 world titles between them ) – Shayne King ( 1996 500cc world title ); Ben Townley ( 2004 MX2 / 250cc world title ); Katherine Prumm ( 2006 / 2007women ’ s world titles ); Tony Cooksley ( 2007 Veterans ’ Motocross World Cup Champion ); Darryll King ( 2012 Veterans ’ Motocross World Cup Champion ); Daryl Hurley ( 2016 / 2018 over-40 years ’ veterans ’ motocross world champion ) and Otago ’ s Courtney Duncan ( 2019 / 2020 / 2021 / 2023 women ’ s world titles ). The Kiwi contingent who will head to this year ’ s MXoN event , set for Winchester in England in October , will certainly do well to draw inspiration from the likes of Josh Coppins , former MX2 world champion Ben Townley , Cody Cooper and the King boys ... because they ’ ve surely proved that underdogs can sometimes bite .
74 KIWI RIDER