Ever since Aussie Superstar Shane Watts broke into the GNCC Racing world in 1999, paving the way for young racers all over the world, America's largest off-road racing series has become the destination for champions from every part of the world. From Juha Salminen to David Knight, to Paul Whibley and Josh Strang - there's no doubt that the Can-Am Grand National Cross Country Series is home to some of the fastest imports in racing. New Zealand's Rory Mead came over to the United States with intentions of racing a few times with fellow Kiwi Paul Whibley, but due to an unfortunate injury in the GEICO American Honda JG Off Road camp, Mead was given the opportunity to live out his dream of racing a premier series in the US. After only two races, the New Zealand Native has managed to lay down an impressive set of 8-4 finishes, one of which he was leading a majority of the race. We caught up with Rory Mead, the newest addition to the GEICO American Honda JG Off Road team, for the time being.
Photo By: Andrew Fredrickson
The Kiwi lead most of the race with time adjustment
Rory Mead: I'm feeling good! JT and I are just working on the bikes now. Yesterday was a lot worse but today I'm still feeling it, it's definitely pretty tough. I think it takes a few days after something like that to really become right.
What did you think of the course?
It's the toughest race in America, for sure. It was definitely a lot harder than I what I thought it would have been. I've done a few of what you'd call "hard races" and that definitely lived up to being pretty tough. I think the fact that you're racing it the whole time, it's not like you really get a break or a rest, you're just sort of flat out all day and that makes it pretty hard. The track itself I didn't find too bad, you can ride it but I think it's when you try to race it is when it gets tough. We all got around okay, I didn't really get stuck anywhere, it's just trying to do all that stuff at speed that was kind of hard. We were all following each other most of the day, I think when you could follow someone it was a lot easier and when they'd get stuck, you'd be able to pass by.
We did an atypical GNCC start this weekend. Do you think starting in the 5th row was an advantage for you?
Yeah I think so. Like when you go hard and you catch the guys from row one then you know you're already out front. After that, all you have to do is stick with them and you don't really have to make the pace, they can pretty much set the pace for you. If you can keep up, then you're good. I definitely think it was an advantage in a way.
At one point I heard Rodney Tomblin announce that your crew wasn't telling you that you were in the lead with time adjustment, is that true?
Photo By: Andrew Fredrickson
Mead grabbed the 2 person holeshot over Fahringer
You were leading more laps than anyone else out there. Take us through the race a little bit.
There were only 2 people in my row on the start so there wasn't really a fight from the beginning. When we caught up to the rest of the people, some of them were good and would let us by when they saw that we had caught up. Once we came across the lead pack with [Josh] Strang and [Paul] Whibley I figured that was the front row and they were taking is easy and I just set in behind. There were pretty much 4 of us flopping back and fourth throughout the race, it was a bit of a freight train. I got a little tired at the end and I sort of knew I was up there so I didn't want to do anything silly because if you got stuck in a bottle neck you could lose 3 or 4 places easily. Once I knew I couldn't catch them, I kind of just backed off because I didn't want to get stuck or anything.
Photo By: Andrew Fredrickson
JG Off Road PR Gal Rachel cheers on Rory (bottom right)
Well, I came over for about 6 weeks to do some races and I was staying down south and borrowing a bike off [Paul] Whibley. You know, he's another Kiwi so it really helps when you've got that connection. So we got a few races in and Jimmy Jarrett got hurt so JT knew that I was floating around and I didn't have any ties or anything so he brought me in with them for a while.
What kind of racing were you doing before you came here?
It was a lot like Enduro format racing, more like World Enduro, a little different than the Enduros quite here. Their tracks are rather technical in New Zealand, but we do have cross-country racing. I mean racing is racing; it just takes a while to pick up when you have different country's ways of doing things.
So do you feel like it was a big change coming to the US?
Yeah, it was a big change adjusting to the type of racing here, the tracks mainly. It's different. New Zealand is such a small country; it doesn't take long to get from one side to the other so you can get a lot of different conditions and terrains so it's quite good so you can learn to ride a little bit of everything.
Photo By: Andrew Fredrickson
Will Mead finish out the GNCC Series?
I would love to; we have yet to talk about that with the team here. I definitely want to stay and do the rest of the year for sure. And race the next year and years to come. This has been a bit of a goal of mine for a while now, to be racing over here and it's happening pretty fast so it's cool.
Where do you stay when you're over here?
I'm staying in Pittsburg with JT, sleeping in his basement (laughs). Jimmy and Scotty are over in Ohio so we don't catch up with them too often, we just kind of do our own thing over here. It's been pretty casual so far, which is good; they just kind of leave it up to us to do our own thing, which works out really well. We know what we've been doing and there are no real changes in the way we do it, we're quite familiar with the whole thing so it's good.
So John Penton in 2 weeks, are you in?
Yeah definitely, I'll be there for sure. I want to give a big thanks to my father Jamie and my Uncle Rick for their support. Also, JT and Gretchen and the entire GEICO American Honda JG Off Road team for giving me the opportunity to race GNCC. I also want to thank AXO Gear and a special thanks to fellow Kiwi Paul Whibley for helping me with bikes.
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