2024 EnduroGP World Championship results from the opening show Super Test at round two of the season in Valpacos, Portugal where Josep Garcia made it two-from-two Friday night fastest times ahead of Zach Pichon and Steve Holcombe.

 

EnduroGP Rnd2 Super Test in Valpacos, in a nutshell:

  • Twisting its way around a course right next to the paddock in Valpacos, tonight’s Super Test was the familiar from the penultimate round of 2023.
  • In fact, the grass had grown since last Autumn but basically little else had changed as first the National and then Open class riders did the job of bedding in the untouched ground and clearing the grass from the ruts formed six months ago.
  • Despite the relative simplicity of the test, some riders still made errors including two of the Women’s class favourites, Francesca Nocera and Rachel Gutish. Nocera remarkably lost a whole minute struggling over one concrete step and Gutish lost the front spectacularly in the sandy Portuguese soil.
  • That allowed Rosie Rowett to claim the fastest overall time by one second ahead of Gutish, who was as quick getting off the floor as she is on two wheels, and Miriea Badia third on a near identical time.
  • Times in the Youth class were equally close with the top five all in the 1:39s. Italian Manuel Verzeroli went fastest of all ahead of the Clauzier twins.
  • Next up (the classes run in reverse order on the Super Test), the Juniors started improve the overall times and Frenchman Leo Joyon clocked in quickest on his Beta with a 1:36, one second faster than anyone in class.
  • Brad Freeman was his usual flamboyant self in taking the first EnduroGP class fastest time of the night – although he did bounce himself outside one of the final log obstacles in doing so.
  • Zach Pichon went next and blitzed faster with a flying 1:34.4 on the Sherco and ahead of a heap of riders very close on times due to this basic track.
  • However, Pichon and Freeman were among a select few docked 10s for course cutting which dropped them way down the order on the night (left-side column in results below is test time, right-side is adjusted classification).
  • Finally the duel between Josep Garcia and Steve Holcombe closed the night’s show and it was the Red Bull KTM rider who clocked the fastest time of the night once again with a 1:33.25, Holcombe was second 1.8s back.
  • Watch video highlights here: EnduroGP video highlights: Super Test, Valpacos – Josep Garcia fastest
  • It’s the second time in two Fridays the Spaniard started the weekend with a win but it’s only one test of 23 across the weekend with tomorrow’s day one proper consisting of three laps of three test (extreme, enduro and cross), plus one more enduro and cross test each before a paddock finish.

EnduroGP Rnd2 in Valpacos, Super Test Results (scratch):

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Photo Credit: Future7Media | Andrea Belluschi