This month and especially the rest of the year will be a busy and also an extremely interesting time for talented Bay of Plenty teenager Levi Townley.
And Kiwi motocross fans should make the most of watching what unfolds with him while he’s still here in New Zealand over the next few weeks, because racing on the world stage is actually where he’ll be heading before we know it.
In just a handful of weeks, the 14-year-old (he turns 15 in February) will skip away to France with the rest of his family – his mum and dad, Lucy and Ben, and his younger brother Jaggar and younger sister Dot – but first he will make the most of his time at home racing his 125cc bike in the opening two rounds of the senior New Zealand Motocross Championships.
This series kicks off near Tauranga on Saturday, February 15.
He has already signalled what can be expected from him after he dominated two classes at the Honda New Zealand Motocross Grand Prix at Woodville a week ago, winning the junior 12-14 years’ 125cc class on the Saturday and then the senior MX125 class the following day (beaten in just one of the three senior 125cc races, on that occasion by Husqvarna rider Hayden Draper, from Karaka).
After his stint racing in the first half of the four-round senior nationals, Yamaha’s Townley will then embark on the next step of his career, heading away to race the EMX125 Championship in Europe for 2025 and beyond.
“I can’t wait. It’ll be awesome,” he told BikesportNZ.com
“I’ll just go a learn and do the best I can, soak up everything that comes to me and grow as a rider.”
The 2024 85cc Motocross World Champion (a title he won in Heerde, in the Netherlands, in August last year) has agreed to terms with the MJC Yamaha EMX125 Team for the next two seasons and Townley is part of a four-rider team to contest the championship that also includes Dutch rider Dani Heitink, French rising star Mano Faure and Belgian standout Jarne Bervoets.
The Townley family will relocate to France to begin this next chapter in his fledgling career.
His father Ben Townley raced a KTM bike to win the MX2 world championships in 2004 and he will naturally call upon his experiences from those times to guide his son through the highs and lows of racing in Europe.
“Yamaha in Europe supported me at the world junior championships back in August and when I won the 85cc class, we started talking about racing in Europe for 2025. They were happy with my results and asked if I was interested in contesting the EMX 125 championship,” Levi said.
Last season was something of a wild ride for the young Kiwi, who not only won a world 85cc championship, but he also claimed the Australian 13-14 years’ 125cc championship in his first major race on the bigger bike.
“It has been an awesome year and at the start of the season I was just hoping to get some experience racing in Australia as well as try and win the New Zealand Championships. It’s all happened pretty fast, and I can’t believe that I’m going to be racing the EMX125 championships.”
© Words and photo by Andy McGechan, www.BikesportNZ.com
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