Motorsport: Townley drops big retirement bombshell

It's all over for former Taupo world motocross champion Ben Townley.

For a brief time, the only noise that could be heard at the national motocross championships finale in Taupo on Sunday afternoon was of a spanner dropping back into its tool box.

A stunned silence fell over the venue as the circuit commentator interviewed Kiwi sports hero Townley ... the 28-year-old former world and New Zealand champion was announcing his sudden, shock retirement from the sport.

After a glittering 12-year international career, which began in 2001 and yielded an MX2 Motocross World Championship title in 2004, a Supercross Lites East Coast title in the United States in 2007 and the national MX1 title last season, the Bay of Plenty rider stunned the large crowd at his home-town track with the revelation that he was retiring from fulltime racing, that decision effective immediately.

After the latest in a succession of injuries which have frustrated Townley and caused the stop-start nature of his career in recent years, he decided "enough was enough".

"I've only smacked my head once previous to this latest spill, but it made me re-evaluate things. I believe concussion is taken too lightly in this sport, anyway. But, with so many injuries, I was just sick and tired of the direction my career was taking.

"I told my Carlton Dry Honda team that I can't deliver the championships I promised them while I'm injured and, after this last fall, I realised I needed to take time off to fully recover.

"I left school when I was 16 and have been racing a long time now. It was a very hard decision to make and I have thought long and hard about it this week. I think it is the right decision.

"I want to do something completely different with my life now, with my wife and our two boys," he said.

"While I am retiring from full-time competition, I will still ride and race at selected events. One thing I have never done, which I'd like to try, is racing the annual Tarawera 100 [cross-country endurance race, near Kawerau]. Perhaps I'll race that.

"Although I am retiring from fulltime competition, I am not walking away from the sport. I love motocross and understand and accept that we can get injured. I am only 28 years old and I believe I have a lot I can give the sport."