It has been some time in the making, but a 2023 edition of the New Zealand Cross-country Championships is now on the horizon and organisers Paul Whibley and Claire Clare believe it will have been worth the wait.
When Motorcycling New Zealand’s long-time cross-country commissioner Chris Smyth retired from the role earlier this year, it left a void that was hard to fill.
The time delay between the retirement of Dannevirke man Smyth and the appointment of his two-person replacement, Manawatu pair Whibley and Clare, put pressure on from the beginning and, as former national cross-country champion Whibley explains, “getting a series up and running during the traditional early New Year dates became problematic and we were facing the prospect of not being able to run a series at all this season”.
But Whibley, also a multi-time cross-country champion in the United States, is no stranger to overcoming the odds and he wouldn’t accept defeat.
“This series is usually up and running by February each year and there simply wasn’t enough time for us to get things organised,” says Whibley.
But the dates for a three-round national cross-country championships series have now been nailed down and they are: Round one, Saturday, November 11, at Pongakawa, near Te Puke;
“I’ve tied in the nationals with the GNCC series that I also run,” Whibley explained. “This will lend the nationals some great venues so we can get a series together for 2023. We will have a couple of tweaks to the format this year to allow the two series to run together.
“Claire and I have a plan to grow the New Zealand Cross-Country Championships.
