here were four seasons in one
weekend at the big annual New Zealand
Motocross Grand Prix at Woodville on
January 26-27. The Honda-sponsored
58th annual edition of the event, the largest
on the Kiwi motocross calendar, had it all.
From burning sun and stiff breezes during
junior racing on the Saturday, to drizzle,
interspersed with patches of sunshine, and
gale force winds during senior racing the
following day. Riders really did have much
more to contend with than just the usual
ruts, jumps and bumps.
With rider safety of prime concern, the
organisers pared back Sunday’s programme
to feature just two races per class, instead of
the planned three per class, but this was still
enough for true champions to be determined
in each of the separate categories and for the
FIM Oceania Challenge Cup sub-plot to also
be played out.
88 KIWI RIDER
The event’s main winner was Mount
Maunganui’s Cody Cooper, the six-time
former national MX1 champion winning both
the premier MX1 races on Sunday, earning
him his third Woodville crown. Cooper had
previously won the coveted trophy in 2007
and a second time in 2014.
Runner-up to Cooper on the Sunday was
visiting Australian Kirk Gibbs (Yamaha
YZ450F), with Taupo’s Cohen Chase (Kawasaki
KX450F) rounding out the MX1 podium.
The New Zealand versus Australia element
to the weekend, the FIM Oceania Challenge
Cup, featured two squads of riders who had
been nominated to represent their respective
countries for the special trans-Tasman clash
and the race-within-a-race battles see-sawed
over the two days, with Australia’s squad
eventually winning the cup by just a solitary
point.