Is this a sign of the times or what? Less than full 40-rider grids at the Motocross World Championships?
The Australian GP, the final round of the 2025 season, is being held this weekend at the brand-new Hidden Valley Motorsports Complex, not far from the centre of the Northern Territory’s capital city of Darwin.
The 2025 MXGP, MX2, and WMX World Champions will all be crowned at this GP of Australia.
This is only the fifth time that top-level world motocross has been run within the world’s biggest island nation, at adult level anyway, and yet there are a total of only 28 riders on the MXGP start-line and 17 on the MX2 start-line.
Maybe I could have entered and finished 18th in MX2? No, that’s a silly thing to say – they actually would not have let me enter because I’d be a danger to myself and others – but it still seems ridiculous that an event so close to home in New Zealand can only attract a handful of riders from this part of the world.
Okay, we get it, as far as the absence of the Europeans is concerned, it’s a little easier to understand. The cost of travelling from Europe is horrendously expensive and more so if you’re bringing your factory bike and a handful of spanner men to care for it.
However, it’s tougher to understand the lack of local interest. This weekend’s event will feature just one Kiwi rider, Honda ace Seth Morrow.
The young man from Invercargill, who now calls Silverdale, north of Auckland, his home is the sole New Zealand entrant in the major championship categories and we say good on him for giving it a go.
The experience he will gain is worth the time, money and effort he and his family is putting in.
Naturally enough, the riders who did travel from Europe were the ones with stern demands to participate written into their contracts, or riders who fancied they might have a chance at perhaps a top-five world ranking at the end of it all.
But it does beg the question, what is going on in this sport?
We can remember the days when Kiwi riders – with absolutely no hope of racing in a GP in their bottom-half of the planet – would gather up all they could save from their paper runs and crawl over broken glass to sleep in a cardboard box (or more likely in the back of a clapped-out van) in the pits somewhere in central Europe (where English is not the first language and the food is quite strange to them) to have just half a chance of qualifying.
Craig Coleman, Bryan Patterson, Darryll King, Shayne King, Damien King, Josh Coppins, Ben Townley, Corrie Sargeant, Kayne Lamont, James Scott, Josiah Natzke, etc, etc (apologies for not listing them all), are a few individuals who “did it tough” and, if we think back there are a few other Kiwis too who at least gave the previous Aussie GP in 2001 a crack.
Of those meagre entries in MXGP and MX2, 10 are Australians and all of them, maybe with the exception of Todd Waters, are grabbing at the chance to have their first GP racing experience this weekend.
Spare a thought for Otago’s Courtney Duncan, who won four Women’s Motocross World Championship titles without ever having the pleasure of racing a GP near her home.
Just saying …
© Words and photo by Andy McGechan, BikesportNZ.com
Find BikesportNZ.com on FACEBOOK here
LEADING STANDINGS AFTER ROUND 19:
MXGP – World Championship – Top 10 Classification:
1. Romain Febvre (FRA, KAW), 929 points; 2. Lucas Coenen (BEL, KTM), 882 p.; 3. Glenn Coldenhoff (NED, FAN), 665 p.; 4. Ruben Fernandez (ESP, HON), 599 p.; 5. Jeffrey Herlings (NED, KTM), 582 p.; 6. Calvin Vlaanderen (NED, YAM), 560 p.; 7. Maxime Renaux (FRA, YAM), 525 p.; 8. Andrea Bonacorsi (ITA, FAN), 508 p.; 9. Tim Gajser (SLO, HON), 464 p.; 10. Jeremy Seewer (SUI, DUC), 368 p.
MX2 – World Championship – Top 10 Classification:
1. Simon Längenfelder (GER, KTM), 884 points; 2. Kay de Wolf (NED, HUS), 868 p.; 3. Andrea Adamo (ITA, KTM), 817 p.; 4. Sacha Coenen (BEL, KTM), 756 p.; 5. Camden Mc Lellan (RSA, TRI), 612 p.; 6. Liam Everts (BEL, HUS), 606 p.; 7. Thibault Benistant (FRA, YAM), 603 p.; 8. Guillem Farres (ESP, TRI), 461 p.; 9. Valerio Lata (ITA, HON), 447 p.; 10. Mathis Valin (FRA, KAW), 434 p.