Ben Townley’s decision to announce his retirement on Sunday was the biggest news of the year, fittingly announced in his hometown of Taupo during the fourth and final round of this year’s New Zealand Motocross Championship.

Many support BT’s choice to hang up his helmet at 28 after a string of injuries, however he’s clearly not giving up riding altogether and will actively remain involved in the sport via Carlton Dry Honda Racing. Simon Makker put together this Catching Up interview with Townley earlier this week, plus we’re also working on a unique feature with BT for tomorrow.

There’s much more to the story of Ben’s retirement though, because in a similar movement to last year, the rider who had been clearly rated as championship favourite throughout the pre-season all of a sudden won’t be on the starting gates (remember last year he was scheduled to depart for TwoTwo Motorsports before injury struck at Coonabarabran).

All of a sudden, riders throughout the MX1 category have extra spring in their steps and the belief that they can be champion no doubt grew with Townley’s decision. They won’t admit it, of course, but you can guarantee that they’re aware his precence will make their job that much easier.

Easier probably isn’t the right word there, because in no way will this season be a simple one for any guy on the grid, no matter how good they are or what they’ve won in the past. The race for the championship is wide open and we’re in for a supremely hard-fought series.

In fact, the knock-on effects of BT’s retirement are ongoing as we speak. Does Carlton Dry Honda Racing replace him or will they simply focus their energies on Ford Dale and the to be announced MX2 contender of Josh Cachia? In speaking to Yarrive Konsky this afternoon, chances are they won’t be signing anybody less than a fortnight before round one (more on that to come).

One rider who has been constantly mentioned via social media is Daniel McCoy, fresh from picking up second in the Supercross series. But he’s already riding a full-spec CDR Yamaha YZ450F in a satellite role, so the switch isn’t that straightforward and the word is he has a spot on the factory team for Supercross again.

Cheyne Boyd has a Honda from Konsky already, but his focus will remain in Victoria this season. A number of Americans have bid for the seat, but then again, the cost rises in the option and most have been focused on Supercross for months. Considering all that, you can understand why Konsky may just decide to keep to bike vacant. In my opinion, if they have the equipment, I’d like to see somebody on it.

The New South Wales titles opened up last weekend and what we are hearing is that Jake Moss is in sizzling form, back aboard a Suzuki with Campbell Mining. Both Jake and twin brother Matt have been doing double duty on 250s and 450s of late, which should assist in their intensity ahead of Raymond Terrace when they focus on MX1.

Luke Clout actually won the overall in MX2 at Cessnock though and hype continues to build around this highly touted rookie. Could Serco Yamaha’s decision to sign him become the surprise package of the year outdoors? We think he can – but it’ll require a super heavy right-hand if he’s to win the title from teammate Luke Styke or Honda’s Cachia.

Here’s Makker, with his contribution to the MX Hub for this week.

A week sure is a long time in motocross As Alex talked about, the news of Ben Townley’s retirement has turned the entire season on its head. How often does the championship favourite in a stacked class pull out before a gate has even dropped?
I’ve known Ben since he was a chubby 13-year-old destroying the rest of the groms on his KX80. Over the years we’ve held countless interviews, and I used to ghost-write his column in Kiwi Rider magazine during his first two seasons in Europe.

It’s been exciting to not only watch him grow and reach his full potential, but also to document his rise to the top both in Europe and the USA, then, more recently, his resurrection and watching his dreams of returning to the States shattered.
Even though there’s a lot of history between us, BT still took a bit of convincing to do yesterday’s must-read interview – click here to check it out.

He claimed he’d retired and the press release said everything. I countered that people were still asking a lot of questions and an unbiased interview would help set the record straight. Ben prides himself on being as transparent and as genuine as possible and eventually agreed, even taking my call while watching the NZ Warriors scramble to their first win of the 2013 NRL season.

BT was far from his chirpy self. He was still coming to terms with his decision, and even though his responses were brimming with his trademark honesty, it was obvious throughout the interview that he has yet to make peace and completely let go of the dreams and desires to return to the upper echelon of racing.

While the 28-year-old’s future is uncertain, you can guarantee some pretty amazing doors will open for him. BT never burnt bridges with anyone (with perhaps the exception of Andrew Short after a controversial pass at the MXoN the Yanks never quite forgave him for) and no-one has a bad word to say about him.

He comes from a family of motocross fanatics and it’s certain that he will continue that tradition. We definitely haven’t seen the last of the One Zero One. Over to you, Adam!

With the majority of the industry this week focusing on Ben Townley’s shock announcement to officially retire from professional competition, you may just find that within the remainder of the MX1 class there may have been a few little sighs of relief here and there.

But although this may be the case for some, it was interesting to hear what Motorex KTM’s Todd Waters thought about the whole situation. In speaking to him this morning he mentioned that he was looking forward to putting himself up against Townley and being able to test his skills against one of the most experienced racers in the world.

Waters battled with Townley at the New Zealand Motocross Championship season opener in Woodville on a stock bike, and said he felt that he had something for him this year. But as we all know, due to the unfortunate circumstances we will never get to see that rivalry appear on Australian soil.

After his stellar 2012 Motocross season, finishing runner-up behind Josh Coppins in the MX1 class, Coppins retired and it looked like it was Waters’ turn to step up to the top spot. Now with Townley back out of the equation, some may say that Waters is a sure thing for the title – but you have to consider the variables between 2012 and 2013 before you go locking that in.

Waters has completely switched his program up for this season, moving to the all-new Motorex KTM Racing team and basically starting a fresh. He will obviously be maintaining his training program which worked so well in 2012, but you have to factor in the extensive testing and pure time spent on familiarizing yourself with a new machine.

Waters capped off his NZ off-season campaign with solid runner-up performance behind former teammate Cody Cooper (who is currently on fire) and revealed that the stiff competition from Coops has provided even more motivation to lift his level of riding. Click here to read todays news story with Waters.

Finishing third overall in the series behind Cooper and CDR Yamaha’s Billy Mackenzie, Waters feels he needs to up his game – but surely nobody is doubting his ability to do so. And I must add that Waters did make the switch to Suzuki for 2012 and we saw him put together his most impressive season to date. So I guess all this talk could be for nothing and we may just see history repeat itself – anything is possible in this sport!

As we reported today on MotoOnline (click here to read that story), Waters’ teammate Kirk Gibbs suffered a fall during Taupo’s final round of the NZ Motocross series and he was quickly taken to hospital to evaluate the condition of his shoulder – track medics feared he had broken his collarbone.

But in a quick call with Gibbs this afternoon, he assured me that there are no broken bones or major issues after being checked out back in Australia. The South Australian is just a little stiff and sore. He plans to take a few days off the bike and get back into it this weekend before heading to New South Wales for the Monster Energy MX Nationals season opener on 14 April.

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