HUMBLE BEGINNINGS From a fairy-tale beginning in the 1960s , the event has flourished and matured and , remarkably , it can list current , former and future world champions among its glittering lists of alumni . Woodville , the small farming service town that guards the gateway between Manawatu and Hawke ’ s Bay , has staged this event on the same grassy farmland venue every year since 1961 . The Woodville motocross all began when a nononsense Australian named Tim Gibbes arrived in the Manawatu to make a home with his wife , local woman Joan Cleghorn . Gibbes was , at that stage , near the end of an eight-year professional career , racing the 250cc and 500cc motocross world championship events all over Europe and in the United States . Back home in New Zealand between the European motocross events , jet-setting riding buddies Gibbes and Ken Cleghorn ( Tim ’ s brother-in-law ) found it difficult to settle . The sport of motocross in New Zealand , or ‘ scrambles ’ as it was then known , was little more than a bunch of leather-jacketed riders on virtual street bikes . It had little or no public profile . Never content to sit still for long , the pair had soon hatched a plan to stage an internationalstyle motocross event in New Zealand , something modelled along the lines of the big European Grand Prix events they ’ d enjoyed so much . Gibbes even offered “ one of the flashier ” trophies he ’ d won in America to be used as the Woodville trophy . Staged on the Woodville farmland owned by

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