KIWI RIDER JANUARY 2018 VOL.1 | Page 94

The prologue track was flowing and quite fast but time was easily lost with any small mistake. Not long into day one I completely snapped my bike’s gear-shift lever off (I usually have a spare zip-tied to bike). After about 15 minutes of riding flat out in 2nd gear, I came across sweep rider John Lewis – a quick change of shifters and I was back on track, having some great dicing with other riders along the way. It was only until about an hour after the lunch stop that I realised I was probably in the lead – as there were no tyre tracks to follow, so was totally reliant on using my GPS to navigate the course. I managed to get the jump on Nigel Smith at the infamous “Broke Back Mountain” - a hill that you cannot ride straight up and involves several switchbacks with pivot turns and a slippery rock face at the top. After 5.5 hours of riding there were only minutes separating the top three. On day two I lost some time not long after the start with a GPS error, which let a couple of riders SILVER OVERALL 1. Nigel Smith (Yamaha YZ250), 11:36:26 2. Mark Delatour (KTM 300EXC), 11:48:50 3. Warwick Batley (KTM 250XCF), 11:52:35 get by me. The great thing about hard enduro is that you never know what happens to the other riders, and there is always the chance that the tables can turn to give you an advantage – maybe the other rider takes a wrong turn, or a wrong line forces him off the track and it takes 30 minutes to get back to the track again. In typical Sean Clarke style we arrived at the end to be greeted with a mini Erzburg. To start with there was a steep off-camber rock face for Silver and Gold rider to drop off, and then a natural rock garden to grovel through to the finish. After 11 hours of racing the top four did not know what their final standings would be. I was pleased with 2nd place in vets 40+ and 3rd in the Silver class with only minutes separating us all.