It was another eventful day of racing for Kiwi motorcycle heroes Paul Whibley and Callan May in the United States on Sunday.

The two Yamaha men were racing at round four of the Grand National Cross-country Championships (GNCC) at Big Buck, South Carolina, keen to push ahead and enhance their positions after solid performances at the opening three rounds of the 13-race series.

“I got a good jump off the line and took the holeshot, although my team-mate Jordan Ashburn was right beside me and snuck into the lead before we got into the woods,” said Pahiatua’s Whibley (Yamaha YZ450F).

Titirangi’s May (Yamaha YZ250F) was also locked in a fierce battle.

“After battling through the dust, I settled in just inside the top 10,” said the 21-year-old May.

The 35-year-old Whibley campaigns the XC1 class, run consecutively but scored separately to the XC2 (250cc) class that May competes in.

“We came out into some fields again pretty quickly and these were dusty and fast,” Whibley continued. “Once back into the woods, it was a little easier to follow Jordan again with less dust being kicked up. The quads (that had their race run earlier in the day) had the track pretty polished in the woods, creating a lot of hard pack soil.

“Late in the lap I had a vine snag around my handlebars, taking me down. I ended up losing a lot of positions and, by the time I got going again I had dropped back to the back of the XC1 class.

“I pushed hard to try to regain some time and my muscles tightened up,” said Whibley.

“With long laps of around 30 minutes, we fuelled after three laps and were set for the last hour and a half. I was starting to loosen up a little and felt ready to push again.

“It seems that, at the same time, the heat and rough track had begun taking a toll on the guys in front of me. I was getting good pit board signals with the gap to the guy in front. I was eight seconds back from Jason Thomas and Stu Baylor. Once I was past them it was Mike Brown and Ryan Sipes and then 35 seconds more to Chris Bach.

“Then I was getting splits to Jordan. One minute, then 40 sec, 25 … Last lap and he wasn’t too far in front. Soon it was 10-second gap and then I could see him. Once I saw him, the pass came quickly. I was taking time on Andrew Delong in fourth too and had halved the gap over the last lap but I ran out of time (to catch him).

“I had a good second half to the race, but this was frustrating because the first 90 minutes of the race had left me in such a poor position to make a run at the podium,” said Whibley.

May also dug into his energy reserves to produce a late charge.

“With one lap to go, I was eight seconds behind sixth place and put a charge on and made the pass coming home sixth overall in XC2, so I was happy with that and it is my best result so far,” said May.

“I was totally exhausted! This was one of the hardest races I’ve done for sure. The rough, square-edged bumps were hard work.”

It is May’s debut season in the GNCC, while Whibley is vastly more experienced, having won the GNCC crown outright twice in recent years, in 2008 and 2012.

May is a two-time former New Zealand enduro champion – winning the under-200cc two-stroke class in 2012 and under-300cc four-stroke class in 2013.

Whibley is supported by Yamaha Motor New Zealand, AmPro Yamaha, Monster Energy, Shoei, Sidi, Smith, MSR G2, Asterisk, Moto SR, Vortex Ignitions, EC3D, Bush Riders MCC, Spectro, Acerbis, DID, JT sprockets, Leatt, Kenda, Sargent Motorcycles, Yamaha NZ, Bikesportnz.com, Unibiker and Tire balls.

May is supported by Yamaha Motor New Zealand, Kiwi Rider magazine, BikesportNZ.com, MotoSR, Golden Tyres, Fox, Graphic Creation, GYTR and Yamalube.

© Words and photo by Andy McGechan, www.BikesportNZ.com

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