The Carl Cox Motorsport Cup: 10 years young!
The Carl Cox Motorsport Cup has just had its tenth birthday, so we thought it was the perfect time to highlight this great initiative.
The New Zealand based series which was previously known as the WIL Sport Hyosung Cup was devised by Kiwi motorsport enthusiast Ken Dobson. The idea was to give an affordable grassroots, level playing field to get young riders into bike racing using the well tested formula of one-make racing.
The concept has had varied degrees of success over probably 50 years of production motorcycle racing covering the popular 250cc sports bikes to Harley Davidson Sportsters. Ken’s own experience racing in the UK in the mid '80's was the Honda V Formula Cup contested on the VF500 V 4 Hondas.
The Cup bikes are Korean made Hyosung 250’s and, introduced more recently, new Kawasaki Ninja 400 machines – with their own class. There are two models of Hyosung, the GT250R V Twin and the newer design X4R single cylinder, both 4 strokes of course. Both very similar in performance developing around 30hp and able to attain over 170kph. Many of these bikes are on the grid for around $3,000. The Ninjas are 400cc parallel twins producing 45hp and capable of well over 200kph.
Carl stepped in to help the series as he had seen it first-hand on his many trips to New Zealand. He loves hearing how the young lads and lasses are getting on and progressing.
Just some of the riders that have come through the series include 3 x Cup Champion Daniel Mettam, Jacob Stroud, Jesse Stroud, and Avalon Biddle, who have gone on to win a total of 10 NZSBK titles and 2 x European titles between them.
Ken Dobson explained: “The Carl Cox Motorsport Cup has been a great platform for riders of all ages and backgrounds to get started in our sport. We have the largest field of riders of any Championship in New Zealand and there is a friendly but competitive atmosphere in our pit. The comradery between Cup Racers is unique in such a competition. Having the support and branding of Carl Cox Motorsport is also a major factor in the success of the Cup and we are very grateful for Carl's belief in what we do.”
Carl summed up: "When I first started visiting the New Zealand race scene I got to see the great work of Ken's youth racing series and could see he was doing great things with the young racers. So when the chance came to support it, we were only too pleased to help. The Cup has helped loads of young riders come through the ranks and continues to do so, it's awesome to see!"
Past champions: 2012 Daniel Mettam, 2013 Daniel Mettam, 2014 Gavin Veltmeyer, 2015 Daniel Mettam, 2016 Nathanael Diprose, 2017 Nathanael Diprose, 2018, Jacob Stroud, 2019 Hyosung Cup Jesse Stroud, 2019 Ninja Cup Jacob Stroud, 2020 Hyosung Cup Loren May, 2020 Ninja Cup Jesse Stroud.