WHIBLEY WRAPS UP
2017 NZXC SERIES
M
by Andy McGechan, bikesportnz.com
anawatu’s Paul Whibley created the
NZXC cross-country racing series
three years ago and he celebrated
its incredible growth with an outright
win at the final round of the 2017
edition of the series on December 3.
The 39-year-old from Taikorea, a two-
time former Grand National Cross-country
Championships (GNCC) winner in the United
States (in 2009 and 2012) and a record six-time
winner of the parallel Off-Road Motorcycle and
ATV (OMA) series, was keen to put something
back into the sport he loves so much.
Hence the NZXC series was formed by him in 2015,
designed as a contest that would help to prepare
intrepid Kiwis for their own overseas racing missions.
Howick’s Liam Draper is one such young
New Zealand rider who has benefited from
the NZXC series and he’ll shortly be heading
to the US, where he hopes he can follow in
the wheel-tracks laid down by Whibley a few
years ago in the GNCC competition there.
Also the New Zealand cross-country
champion in 2015, Whibley was probably
always going to be among those favoured
to win the NZXC series this year.
Whibley won the inaugural running on the NZXC
series “by accident” in 2015, despite him not racing
the final round – the rider who had been expected
to wrap up the series crashed out of the points
that day, leaving the trophy in Whibley’s hands.
Whibley again did not contest all the NZXC rounds
last season and that time it was Coatesville’s
Sam Greenslade who took the main trophy.
This year Yamaha stalwart Whibley just dived right
in and, with five wins and two runner-up finishes in
the seven starts, including his victory at Sunday’s
final round near Pahiatua, he couldn’t be touched.
Riders were to count just six of the seven rounds,
discarding their one worst result, and, even then,
Whibley had wrapped it up with a round to spare.
Kiwi Rider-supported Draper was the only
rider to beat Whibley in the NZXC this year,