KIWI RIDER 10 2019 VOL2 | Page 30

permanently to New Zealand at the end of the 2014 GNCC season and then won the New Zealand Cross-country Championships the following year. He also set up his own cross-country series – initially labelled the NZXC Series but now rebranded as the NZ GNCC series – and he now dedicates his time to running that, although Whibley was named New Zealand’s Off-road Rider of the Year in 2008 30 KIWI RIDER often also competing in it and winning races too. Whibley – the former forestry worker they call “The Axeman” – is about as sharp as they come and, now aged 41, continues to race at the top level of the sport in New Zealand, even indicating that he will contest the cross-country nationals again in 2020.