Too good to turn down
Big event lures rider Townley out of retirement
One of New Zealand’s most successful motocross riders Ben Townley is coming out of international retirement to take part in November’s Monster Energy SX Open at Mt Smart Stadium.
Ateed — Auckland Council’s events arm — announced earlier in the week they were helping bring the newly created event to Auckland for the first time.
The 33-year-old Townley, who won major titles all around the world, found the chance to compete against some of the world’s best at home in New Zealand too big an attraction to turn down.
“I am pretty excited about the Monster Energy SX Open in Auckland,” Townley told the Weekend Herald.
“The guys contacted me early in the piece and said they’d like to have me as part of the event and I said I would love to be involved.
“It’s the biggest Supercross event ever to come to New Zealand.
“There are some big names from the world championships that will be announced in the coming weeks.
“It’s going to be a pretty good field of riders coming down from outside New Zealand and Australia.
“It definitely will be the biggest Supercross event we’ve ever had on New Zealand shores. It’s part of the newly formed Oceania Championship and they are growing that now into New Zealand as the second stop and they’re looking at expanding that in the future.”
Mt Smart Stadium will be turned into a state of the art motocross facility, with 6000 tonnes of dirt being trucked into the stadium. Townley, who retired professionally in 2016, is excited with what the organisers have designed.
“They have added in some cool options to this layout at Mt Smart.
“We have a good national scene now,” Townley said. “We don’t have the international standard — I was probably the last rider that had international success — but we have a good standard. We have had Australian and international riders visiting for the past 10 years as a pre-season and this was the first year we didn’t have a Kiwi win it since the 1980s.”