KICKING CANCER | Bikesportnz

It was extraordinary to watch Mary Wanhill race at the 2015 New Zealand Veterans’ and Women’s Motocross Championships in Taranaki at the weekend.

She was just one of the dozens of extremely talented women who were racing at the Opunake venue, but her story had a fairytale ring about it.

The 32-year-old Wanhill (formerly ‘Scary Mary’ Perkins of Crusty Demons fame) was celebrating her first competitive outing since shaking off cancer and she was, remarkably, running with the leaders in the senior women’s class.

Riding a Suzuki RM-Z250 with the No.159 emblazoned on its plates – which signified the distance (159 feet) of her women’s world record leap of her heyday years, a record that still stands – Wanhill looked right at home as she pulled off a couple of holeshots over the weekend and mixed it up with the frontrunners.

“It has been about 10 years since I was a regular competitor at motocross events,” she said. “It has been 13 months now since I was diagnosed with cancer and now it’s in remission. It’s about four months since I finished my radiation and chemotherapy treatments.

“It’s not so much a comeback to the sport that I’m celebrating here, but the fact that I’ve kicked cancer in the butt.”

So did finishing the championships as high as national No.4 surprise her?

“My expectations have always been high, but I am pretty happy with how I rode at this event,” said Te Puke’s Wanhill, who never stopped being the Encounter Race Team manager during her treatment.

“It’s a great motorcycling community that we have here in New Zealand and I wanted to support women’s motocross by being here. I want to support and push it.”

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