WOODVILLE THE ‘FIELD OF DREAMS’ FOR MOTOCROSS
CAPTION: Mount Maunganui’s Josiah Natzke, sure to be one of the favourites to win at this year’s 63rd annual Honda New Zealand Motocross Grand Prix at Woodville. Photo by Andy McGechan, BikesportNZ.com
JANUARY 15, 2026: Perhaps New Zealand has its own Field Of Dreams and from the Hollywood film of that name came the phrase: “Build it and they will come”.
And that’s just what Palmerston North’s Tim Gibbes did more than 60 years ago when he organised the first New Zealand Motocross Grand Prix at Woodville.
So come they did … leading riders from New Zealand, Japan, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, England, Scotland, the United States, Australia, New Caledonia and Indonesia have raced on the rolling grass farmland circuit, at the eastern end of the Manawatu Gorge, over the past six decades.
The biggest dirt bike race in the Southern Hemisphere – the annual Honda New Zealand Motocross Grand Prix at Woodville – will celebrate its 63rd anniversary in just over a week’s time, on Saturday and Sunday (January 24-25), with what is expected to be another scorching two days of intense race action.
The event skipped two years (in 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and then it was rained out in 2023), otherwise this year’s event would actually be the 65th anniversary.
Since the stand-alone event was first staged in 1961, the Woodville event has grown to become the jewel in the crown for New Zealand motocross and many hundreds of riders will battle over the weekend, including minis, juniors, seniors, women and veterans.
With more than 600 riders again booked for this year’s edition of the Woodville GP, the dirt-biking extravaganza continues to rank as the country’s No.1 dirt bike event.
And this big Honda-sponsored event is set to be another massive ‘superstar showdown’, with the racing on Sunday also incorporating round one of three in the New Zealand Women’s Motocross Championships.
The competition will be fierce, with the women expected to showcase their very best, as selection for the New Zealand women’s motocross team for the upcoming FIM Oceania Women’s Motocross Cup, to be held in Wongthaggi, Australia, on March 21-22, is on the line.
Several overseas riders, mostly from Japan and Australia, have already signed up to race at Woodville this year and of course they’ll have high hopes of taking away the main silverware in their carry-on luggage when they leave.
But, even with a talented batch of international riders flying in, last season’s Woodville winner, Mangakino’s Maximus Purvis, and fellow Kiwi international Josiah Natzke, from Huntly, remain the clear favourites to win the main prize.
The long and illustrious list of previous winners includes riders such as Shayne King, the New Plymouth man who was the 1996 500cc motocross world champion, Britain’s Greg Hanson, top Australians Kirk Gibbs and Dean Ferris, American Willie Surratt and Sweden’s Gunnar Lindstrom, to name just a few.
To date there have only been 13 multiple (two wins or more) champions at Woodville – Shayne King holding the incredible record as a nine-time senior champion there (between 1992 and 2006).
Only one of these multi-time Woodville GP champions are expected to line up to race again in 2026, Papamoa’s Cody Cooper.
Cooper has previously won overall at Woodville on three separate occasions (in 2007, 2014 and 2019), although he currently campaigns a 250cc bike, so not in contention for the premier MX1 (450cc) class trophy.
If Purvis wins the MX1 class and Woodville outright again this time around it will be his second overall victory at Woodville and, if Natzke wins, it will be his first.
Host Manawatu-Orion Motorcycle Club president Brad Ritchie said it was “an honour to continue the legacy of top-calibre motocross in New Zealand”, with the Woodville event the first significant such competition ever held here and, as always, being staged on the same plot of farmland that hosted the inaugural running in 1961.
“We want to again say a big thanks to our sponsors, particularly Blue Wing Honda. We enjoy working alongside the landowner, Tararua District Council and the local community to bring this event to life.
“The event really does have an international Grand Prix feel about it. The Woodville motocross is a very special occasion for everyone. It always starts the year off with a bang.”
Sadly, Tim Gibbes, the former world championship Grand Prix motocross rider who founded the event in 1961, passed away in October 2023, although his legacy does live on.
The senior feature race prize has been renamed the Tim Gibbes Memorial Trophy and is still the most coveted piece of silverware on offer to the Kiwi motocross racing community.
Credit: Words and photo by Andy McGechan, www.BikesportNZ.com
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