Pāpāmoa rider Cody Cooper starts motocross season in style with Taupō win

Pāpāmoa's Cody Cooper kicked off his 2023-24 season in the best way possible, taking the chequered flag in the premier MX1 class at MX Fest in Taupō over the weekend. Photo / Andy McGechan BikesportNZ.com

The 2023-24 New Zealand motocross season could not have kicked off much better for Bay of Plenty racer Cody Cooper.

The just-turned 40-year-old showed age is no barrier to performing at the top level.

The Pāpāmoa rider, a multi-time New Zealand motocross champion, won the premier MX1 class at the annual MX Fest event at the Digger McEwen Motorcycle Park on the outskirts of Taupō over the weekend.

It was his first race meeting in New Zealand, after he’d only signed up to race for the GasGas brand a few weeks earlier.

Cooper dug deep to win the races that mattered at Taupō, snatching the class overall ahead of Ōtautau rider Jack Treloar and Wairoa’s Tommy Watts.

Cooper also took his GasGas MC450F to outlast all riders in the feature shoot-out, a series of races that eliminated riders at each phase.

The shootout started with the top riders from each of the 125cc, MX2 and MX1 classes, culling out the slowest riders each time, reducing the competition from 40 riders until eventually, there were just three in the final outing.

Cooper was the last man standing, winning the final three-rider shootout ahead of Watts and Oparau’s James Scott.

Cooper had finished 1-3-1 in his MX1 class races, and his eventual 12-point winning margin over Treloar gave him a massive boost in confidence, with a jam-packed season of racing now ahead of him.

Individuals will battle for the silverware at the annual New Zealand Motocross Grand Prix at Woodville in late January before the nationals kick off near Rotorua in February.

Cooper is the current national MX2 champion and also a multi-time former national champion in the 125cc and MX1 categories.

“It’s a great way to start the season. I had no problems physically, and this is possibly because I have been riding at a good level a fair bit lately,” he said, in reference to his representing New Zealand at the Motocross of Nations in France earlier this month.

“I had not ridden the GasGas much at all before the Motocross of Nations [from October 7-8] and I’m still fine-tuning suspension settings.

“I felt better on the bike here in Taupō this weekend than I usually do at this time of the year, so I couldn’t have asked for much more than what I achieved this weekend,” Cooper said.