When you mention dirtbikes and stupidly-fast Kiwi women, the mind instantly jumps to Courtney Duncan, and for good reason. The four-time World Motocross Champion is New Zealand’s most successful international racer and at just 28 she’s still got plenty more world titles to accumulate. But Duncan’s success has somewhat overshadowed the impressive achievements of another New Zealander who’s also destroying the competition at an international level. Rachael Archer has claimed back-to-back WXC titles in the United States’ GNCC series, including an absolute thumping of the opposition last year when she comfortably won the championship with two rounds to spare.
Despite her international success, her efforts are largely unknown and unseen back home in New Zealand, and any pitches to mainstream media have been met with a lukewarm response.
“I think it’s a bit of a lack of understanding about what off-road racing is,” she shrugs. “They just think it’s a bit like motocross. It’d be cool to get some more exposure for what I’ve achieved, but any time we’ve tried to approach them, they just don’t care. I just try and grow my own social channels, focus on my racing, and don’t let it bother me.”
The 22-year-old comes from a pretty rich pedigree of off-road racing. Her dad, Kevin Archer, is something of a legend in the New Zealand enduro scene; he’s a bull-farmer, built like an ox himself, tougher than a $2 steak, and has enjoyed plenty of national enduro-racing success over the decades.
Combined with the fact that she had more than 600ha of rolling farmland at her disposal in a remote part of the central North Island, it’s not at all surprising that dirtbikes have been part of Rachael’s life for as long as she can remember. She was the “crash-test dummy” for her three older brothers, but didn’t discover a passion for racing until she was about 10 years old when Kevin took her to a nearby round of a cross-country series.
Racing her little KLX, she finished fourth in the Junior class and was hooked.
“I started racing every weekend, a bit of motocross, then when I stepped up to the 85cc I started doing hard enduros and loved that too,” she recalls. “Until I was 17 I’d race every weekend I possibly could; I think there was one year I did 42 different races in 52 weeks.”
During her Year 12 high-school year in 2018, Kiwi enduro legend Paul Whibley helped arrange an amateur ride with Randy Hawkins’ Ampro Yamaha team for a couple of GNCC rounds, and Rachael jumped at the opportunity. A courageous top six ride at the Powerline Park round (after running third for most of the race) impressed Randy and the team and they offered her a full-time amateur ride for the following year.
Despite racing at venues she’d never seen before, 2019 was a year that quickly put her on the radar, as she strung together six consecutive mid-season podium performances and finished the season fourth overall.
It’s been game on since then: in both 2020 and 2021 she took the title down to the wire against Becca Sheets, and heartbreakingly came off second best both times.
Rachael says 2021 hurt the most though.
“It came down to the last race of the championship; I had to win and she had to finish fourth or lower,” she describes. “It was a real mudder of a race and I ended up winning by 12 minutes, and Becca was in fourth, but on the last lap the girl in third crashed. She ripped her starter button off her bike, and couldn’t get her bike going again so Becca passed her with a mile to go. Meanwhile I was standing in the pouring rain, stressing for about half an hour to see if I’d done enough. Man, it was gutting to see Becca cross the line in third!”
Adding to the challenge that year was the fact that Rachael contracted the Epstein-Barr virus; a product of over-training where too much oxidated stress is placed on the human body to the point where it can’t produce enough antioxidants to keep the immune system healthy.
It’s something she’s since found she can manage with anti-oxidants, vitamins and some natural mushroom supplements, but it certainly took its toll early on.
“There was one race I was winning and my heart rate went so high that I tanked and thought I was going to black out,” she recalls. “I remember sections of the track where I was trying not to faint. Two girls passed me and I crossed the finish line in third, then just fainted. I couldn’t even go to the podium, I was that screwed.”
The virus was still present in 2022 and at one stage she was hospitalised when her liver enzymes skyrocketed to 10 times their normal level. Despite that, she was able to largely manage the virus all season, and this was the year she finally found redemption: after losing the championship by the barest of margins two years in a row, she turned the tables and finally claimed the title by just five points over Australian Tayla Jones.
It was an intense battle that raged all season, with the two of them trading race wins almost every weekend. It came down to a winner-take-all final round at Ironman, IN, and as fate would have it, Tayla and Rachael found themselves running first and second heading into the final stages of the race.
“I’ve got a bit of ADHD, so when it comes down to the wire like that, I can hyper-focus and I perform really well under stress,” she explains. “If it’s crunch-time and shit has to be done, I can just tunnel-vision and make it happen. It was really dusty, and Tayla crashed on the final lap.
“I was just trying to manage my bike so it wouldn’t blow up, but when I crossed the line, man, it was such a cool feeling. I’d been working towards that moment since I was in high school, and to make it even more special, Dad had surprised me by coming over for that final round. It was a pretty emotional day.”
After celebrating both her win and her 21st birthday back home, Rachael returned to the US to defend her title in 2023. However, before the season started, her main rival, Tayla Jones, suffered a horrific motocross crash and was ruled out for the year with a broken neck, back, jaw and multiple other injuries.
Rachael’s 2023 campaign suddenly became a whole lot easier, but rather than hit cruise control, she doubled down with her training and racecraft to stamp her authority on the championship.
It ended up being a bloodbath – over the 12 rounds she racked three runner-ups and nine wins, including an 11-minute margin at a muddy Hoosier round. She wrapped up the title with two rounds still to run, but that didn’t stop her from winning those stops either, despite carrying a nasty toe injury. Riding Zach Osborne’s bike at a local race to try and figure out some issues he was having with it, she smashed her toe against a stump with enough force to split it in two.
“I rode back to the pits and took my boot off, and there was blood everywhere; my toe was just hanging there,” she describes. “I rang a surgeon friend and said ‘I’m going to be at your place in two hours’, hopped in my van and drove to his house, as he had x-ray machines we could use.
“The problem was I didn’t have any cash to pay him, so I hobbled into a gas station with no shoes on, leaving this trail of blood across the floor to the ATM. It was all a bit of mess! At his house we got the x-rays done and he stitched it all up for me and sent me on my way.”
Despite being barely able to walk, she decided to race the next round to earn prize money: “I wrapped up my buggered foot, put a size eight boot on it, and my usual size seven on the other foot, got a good shot of Toradol – a really strong anti-inflammatory – in my butt 30 minutes before I went to the starting line, and I was sweet.”
“I just wanted to make some money, get my bonuses and make a statement by winning out the last two races, and I did that, which was pretty cool.”
However, looking back on the whole season, Rachael admits that winning the second championship so comfortably didn’t mean as much to her as having to fight tooth-and-nail for that first title.
“The first title was more special, without a doubt, just because I felt like I finally managed to turn the two years of heartbreak around to finally be on the winning end,” she enthuses. “At the same time, it was nice not to be super-stressed out at the end of the season – this year was a lot more fun.
“At the last race at Ironman I was able to go to the concert and stuff, and probably partied a bit too hard, but it was a big weight off my shoulders to be able to do that.”
After five years with Yamaha, Rachael is mixed things up in 2024 and added a new challenge to her campaign, signing with the Red Bear Kawasaki Racing Team to race a KX250 at last year’s series. She also had a new mechanic – 19-year-old Trent Wood – after she wasn’t able to lure her Yamaha mechanic away with some extra money.
She spent the pre-season living out of a caravan at the Shoals MX Park in South Carolina, practicing every day with 50 or so other resident riders, and putting as much time as she could aboard the new bike. She had some extra incentive to do so, as Red Bull KTM enlisted WORCS and desert racer Brandy Richards to try and overthrow her, and Rachael was also under no illusion that the rest of the field was more than keen to close the gap on her.
Prior to the start of the 2024 season, Rachael said, “I think Brandy will be my main competition this year, but she’s such a loose cannon. She holds it wide open and crashes a lot, so we’ll see. She’s a great rider, but I think I’ve got her covered in the technical stuff.
“Then there’s Korie Steede, who just hates it when I beat her, Jordan Jarvis has taken my spot at Yamaha, Rachel Gutish is always a podium threat and Prestin Raines has signed with Sherco this year. There’re no shortage of girls who badly want to beat me!”
For 2024, Rachael raced both the GNCC and the Ryan Sipes-owned National Enduro Championship (NEC), and her aim was to win both… and she did.
As for what her future holds, Rachael plans to see out the remaining four years of her 10-year US visa, win as many titles and make as many US Dollars as possible, then return home.
“After that, I’ll probably buy some property and figure out what I want to do,” she says. “I’ve already been offered jobs selling stock feed, farming, tractor-driving and all kinds of stuff, so I might end up working in the rural sector. Then there’s the whole adventure-riding side of things, which seems to be getting quite big, so there’re always options there.
“For now though, I just want to be as successful as possible over here and see how many championships I can win. I’ve got plenty left in the tank yet.”
NAME: Rachael Archer
AGE: 23
LIVES IN: Greenwood, South Carolina, at the Shoals MX Park.
DRIVES A: 2019 Ford F250 with a 10.5m toy hauler caravan
FAVOURITE FOOD: Probably lamb.
DRINKS: Monster Energy, coffee and tea.
LISTENS TO: New country like Zach Bryan day-to-day, but I like listening to AC/DC or Mac Miller when I’m working out.
CURRENTLY WATCHING: Yellowstone and AMA Supercross.
IF YOU SEE ME AT THE BAR, BUY ME: A Malibu Coke, a Corona or a vodka soda. I try not to drink too much over here, but sometimes you’ve got to celebrate.
