MotoX: Off-road champ calls it a day

Paul Whibley (Yamaha), now back home for good. Pictures / Andy McGechan, BikesportNZ.com

Kiwi Whibley is coming home, writes Andy McGechan

Pahiatua's Paul Whibley has achieved plenty on the international motorcycling scene over the past dozen or so years. But now, at 36, the Kiwi hero is packing his bags and heading home from his South Carolina base to settle back in the Manawatu region.

With a dozen years of sleeping in motor homes and travelling the world to race off-road motorcycles, competing in the World Enduro Championships and the Grand National Cross-country Championships (GNCC) in the United States - where he twice won the title outright, in 2009 and 2012 - the former forestry worker the bike world affectionately calls "The Axeman" is ready for "the quiet life", although his version of quiet is probably vastly different from anyone else's.

The decision to return home was not easy and not anticipated by the Yamaha ace even a year ago. However, Whibley believes it's time that he, his wife, Katherine, and their 9-month-old son, Colton, enter a different phase of their lives.

"I never thought I'd end up where we stand today, 12 years down the track, with two GNCC and six OMA Championship [Off-road Motorcycle and ATV] titles to my credit," said Whibley.

"It's a tough call to make to come home and one I have wrestled with for a while now.
"I will miss being a professional racer and going to all the races. But I will miss even more the friends we have made along the way.

"The support from fans has been amazing.

"We have been welcomed and accepted as if we were one of their own, which makes it even harder to leave.

"And it all would not have been possible without the great sponsors, many have been with us for the long haul and become as much friends as sponsors ... so a huge thanks to all.
"The future is a little uncertain at this stage, but I welcome the blank canvas to start to paint the next portrait of my life.

"Looking back on it all, I wonder where the time went - travelling around the world chasing our dreams and realising many of them. Now it's time to take a step to the side and help little Colton chase his."

And there will be no rest for Whibley, in the short-term at least, as he again sets himself the task of organising a major race here in New Zealand, on his private practice property at Taikorea on the outskirts of Palmerston North, this Saturday (November 22).

It will be the third time the Yamaha Taikorea 500 has been organised by Whibley - he doesn't race it himself because he's too involved trying to organise it - and it is again expected to attract some of the cream of New Zealand off-road bike racers, all going head-to-head in a novel four-race format that features two back-to-back one-hour endurance races and two 10-minute sprint races.

Each race at the Taikorea 500 offers $100 in prizemoney, with an extra $100 for any rider who wins all four races.

Paul Whibley

Although still really only a fledgling competition, it's a race that seems to be quickly growing in popularity and each time has produced plenty of drama.

The unthinkable happened at the Taikorea 500 last season when a rider who now describes himself as semi-retired, with no build-up events under his wheels in the preceding months, showed up with old technology and won the event for a second time.

Marton sheep and beef farmer Cam Smith won the inaugural Yamaha Taikorea 500 in 2012 and he surprisingly repeated the feat last year, riding exactly the same Yamaha YZ450F bike he had used 12 months earlier.

It certainly raised eyebrows because, with the event rapidly growing in stature, the entry list featured some of the cream of New Zealand's off-road riders, current and former national champions among them, and so it was always going to be harder for the then 37-year-old Smith to win it a second time around.

So the question being asked now is, can Smith make it three in a row this weekend?