Hard Enduro World Championship Results from day one in the Serbian mountains at the Xross Hard Enduro Rally where Wade Young stormed a GASGAS one-two results ahead of Michael Walkner and Sherco’s Teo Kabakchiev third.

 

Xross Hard Enduro Off Road day 1 in a nutshell:

  • The weather this week in Serbia is hot, and the forest climbs are dry, but the notorious rocky streams and valleys are as slick and loose as ever as riders tackled headed North West of the paddock in Zlatibor on a relentless 100km route.
  • The third round represents a change to GPS routing and checkpoints which many of the riders look forward to and some, you’ll see by the results, specialise in.
  • Those riders include two-times Xross podium finisher Teo Kabakchiev who basically opened the way for the first half of the day, smashing the job of course opener but suffering on the virgin territory.
  • The Bulgarian was reeled in by check point five by South African Wade Young, relentless as ever in these conditions and the pair, along with Mario Roman and Michael Walkner, stretched a healthy gap on the rest of the field during the second half of the four and a half-hour day.
  • Relentless was the word for Wade as he trailed Kabakchiev in the morning, seemingly holding some energy and then overtook, steadily increasing an advantage to cross the line 2 minutes 34 seconds clear at the final Red Bull arch.
  • It was an impressive ride from Young who has had time enough now to adapt to the GASAS, adjust his style from the Sherco and took the bull by the horns today (take a close look at Wade’s racebike here: Pro Bike: Wade Young’s GASGAS EC300 Hard Enduro World Championship race bike).
  • Also on good form and on a GASGAS, (it’s like the Austrian factory made amends for not having Mani or Bill at this HEWC round and gave two other riders the factory equipment…), Michael Walkner made a very solid start to the Serbian round with second place on day one.
  • Starting a little down the order, nine minutes behind the first rider away, played a little into Walkner’s favour but the Austrian was efficient at covering the ground and wasted no time today.
  • Kabakchiev by contrast probably wasn’t helped by leading the way this morning. It takes a lot of energy to push virgin lines up some of these loose rock gullies – with every rider it “ beds in” and can get a bit easier. As a consequence, Teo flagged a little in the afternoon to finish almost eight minutes down on Young.
  • For Young, Kabakchiev and Mario Roman in fourth place (12 minutes down on Wade) this round is their chance to make hay and score points while Mani is away. Second overall, Roman will want to pull back in to the top three at least this week to bag points.
  • Behind them the best of the rest was David Cyrian the Czech rider who spends a lot of his riding life in eastern European races and it showed today as he claimed a top five position. 
  • Graham Jarvis had a problem half way through the morning, losing almost one hour to fix (a bent rear sprocket we understand). He posted fast times during the day but that left him over an hour down on the leader and in 15th place.

 

Xross Hard Enduro 2024 Off road Day 1 results (top 25):

xross_hard_enduro_day_1_results_

 

Photo credit: Future7Media | Andrea Belluschi