Hayden Draper: two senior titles before 17
MX125 champion in 2025 and MX2 champion in 2026.
By ROOST New Zealand desk · 17 October 2026
Two senior national titles before most riders have finished school. That's where Karaka's Hayden Draper is at.
In March 2025, at 15, Draper won the senior MX125 championship on a Husqvarna. A 3-3-2 card at the Rotorua finale was enough to hold off Jack Ellingham, who swept that day. MNZ pointed out what made it remarkable: he was racing MX2 that season as well.
For 2026 he moved to the Altherm JCR Yamaha team and the YZ250F, and he went straight to the top. He won Round 1 in Invercargill with two race wins, and was in a season-long fight with visiting Australian Caleb Ward (Husqvarna) and his own teammate James Scott. He also won Round 3 in Tauranga, then rode 1-2-2 at the Rotorua finale to take the championship by eight points from Scott.
He was 16 when he did it. With Maximus Purvis winning MX1, the title also completed an Altherm JCR Yamaha sweep of both senior headline classes.
Moving from 125cc champion to MX2 champion in successive seasons is exactly the path the sport wants its best juniors to take. The obvious question now is how long it will be before Draper is lining up on a 450, or overseas.
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