As hard enduro riders there’s not much downtime between seasons. It doesn’t feel that long ago since we competed at the Roof of Africa. In fact it’s only been eight weeks, but already it’s time to get the new season started. The Tough One kicks off this weekend and as my only true home race for the season, it’s one I’m excited about for a number of different reasons.
So far 2012 has worked pretty well for me, with three races and three wins – can’t do much better than that!
My season kicked off with the Tough One and I was keen to have a good result in front of my home crowd. Third off the line, I took the lead half way round the first lap and then managed to lap everyone by the halfway point. Congratulations to organiser Steve Ireland for putting on an excellent event. You could see the spectators were loving the steep climbs and the one particularly steep descent.
Shortly after that I headed off to the US of A for a new race called the King of Motos, which was run alongside a big 4x4 rock crawling event that brings out big crowds over there. Situated between Los Angeles and Vegas, in the middle of the desert, I was second up the big hill right at the start, behind Kurt Caselli, and then got overtaken by a few riders when the route headed out into the open desert – not really my speciality! It was only right at the end that it got technical again and I managed to pull back a load of time and win the event. And as added bonus I got to see the Supercross at Anaheim, which was a bit of an eye opener!
Barely had I got home and I was off again to Italy for the infamous Hell’s Gate. I was a little bit worried, as the organisers had announced they were going to make it a little easier this year, meaning less advantageous for me. Third off the line I spent half a lap behind Johnny Walker before going into the lead and then he followed me for a while through the snow. Eventually I managed to open up a gap and was leading by about 3 minutes before having to pit to change a gear lever. That allowed Johnny to pull back to within 1 minute of me and then on the last couple of laps I pushed a bit to increase my cushion to 4 minutes again.
Hopefully my good run of form will continue all the way through the year. My next outing though might be a bit of a challenge – an urban enduro in New Zealand. It sounds like it might be a bit Endurocross but I’m hoping it won’t be too fast. I’m really keen to go out there, but I can’t say I’m looking forward to the flight! I’ll be sure to let you know how I get on.
Cheers for now
Graham
