It was a case of contrasting extremes at the62nd annual Honda New Zealand Motocross Grand Prix atWoodville at the weekend. With 30-degree heat beatingdown on the racers, along with billowing dust, on Saturday,and then rain and mud testing the riders in a vastlydifferent way on Sunday, the more than 600 riders enteredcertainly had to bring their ‘A game’ to cope with thevarious challenges that arose. To cut a long storyshort, Mangakino’s Maximus Purvis demonstrated thatconsistency counts most when he won the first two of threeraces in the premier MX1 class and was therefore affordedthe luxury of settling for a distant third in therain-drenched and extremely slippery final outing, enoughfor him to wrap up the class overall and also to take theprestigious Tim Gibbes Memorial Trophy for the first time onSunday.
Runner-up was two-time former Woodvillechampion and national MX1 No.1 Hamish Harwood, from WestAuckland, with Kiwi international Josiah Natzke claimingthird overall at Woodville on Sunday. Purvis finished1-1-3 in his three MX1 outings, while Harwood posted aconsistent 2-2-2 score-card.
Natzke finished 3-3-1, hisperformance in the treacherous mud at the end of the day areal stand-out. In the end, the gap between Purvis andHarwood was just four points for the GP title overall, withNatzke finishing just one point furtherback. Tauranga’s Levi Townley easilywon the senior MX125 class on Sunday, finishing ahead ofLevin’s 2024 junior national champion Phoenix VanDusscho.
