Event: British Enduro Championship Rd 1, Metzeler Hafren Enduro, Mid Wales
D3 Riders lead the way in Series opener
For the last 3 seasons D3-Racing KTM have dominated the British Enduro championship with the skills of World Champion David Knight, with David opting to race GNCC in America it has opened the door for the up and coming stars of the British series to battle for the title. Without David several riders have a chance to take top honors, and this season should see some very close racing and it’s certainly not a forgone conclusion as in the past. Although D3 and KTM UK have drafted in the services of Multi world champ Juha Salminen from Finland who has chosen to race this series as practice and testing for the WEC, although Juha’s presence should not spoil the party for the Brits as he can only score overall points for the “British Open Title” leaving the UK riders to battle for the British championship classes. Effectively there will be 4 champions at the end of the season so there’s allot to fight for and hopefully our Tom Sagar will be the one to fight for the British E2 championship aboard his D3-Racing 450 EXC.
Running up to the event the team was very confident, obviously Juha is on top form and currently leading the WEC and Tom is getting faster race by race and starting to become comfortable with his 450 KTM. Thursday prior to the race the team had a successful test and Juha gave Tom a few riding tips although not enough from preventing Tom from having a huge high speed get off which left both bike and rider very badly bruised, so Tom started the event very second hand, but on a positive note the testing had improved the set up of his bike so we were still hopeful of a good result. For this race only, D3 have the services of 5 times World Champ veteran Gio Sala on the team riding the Electric start 300 EXC-E. Gio’s job for the weekend was not to fight for the podium but to inspect the course and give feedback to WEC promoters with a view to the Hafren club running a world round next year, I’m sure everyone hopes they get the chance as despite the worst weather for years the club put on a brilliant course and special tests that withstood the weather, both Juha and Gio had allot of praise for the event. Everyone should get behind the club to support this including the motorcycle manufactures and the ACU, we have a great club, a great course and I’m sure a great deal of fans and riders would love to see a world event back in the UK very soon.
The structure of the event is at the start and end of the day the riders have a grass motocross test of around 5 minutes close to the paddock and then ride off up to the Hafren forest to complete 3 laps of the course with a cross-country test each lap. The morning’s MX test due to heavy over night rain would benefit the early numbers whilst the grass was still there, as each rider went through the times dropped but Juha and Tom both opened with very respectable times behind local man Edward Jones. But it was onto the cross-country test were the KTM D3 riders would stamp their authority finishing only a second apart, the team mates were several seconds faster than any one else on each of the two timed tests before returning to the MX test were Juha once again took overall honors . Fortunately the rain stayed away for the day and the event went smoothly and all three KTM riders completed the day without problems with Juha and Tom finishing 1st and 2nd overall and taking maximum points at round one.
Day 2 the rain came but the event was shortened to two laps, 2 cross country tests and 3 motocross tests, Juha rode well within himself and as the conditions deteriorated gave everyone a riding lesson and Tom followed closely behind with a good cushion over the on form 3rd placed Daryl Bolter. Both Tom and Juha had to leave quickly after the event as both fly Monday to New York for the 5th round of the WEC in Canada and then onto Round 6 in USA so they will both miss the 2nd rd of the BEC the Tywi in two weeks, but the rules allow 2 days results to be dropped in the series because of the clash between BEC and WEC.
Result Day 1:
1. Juha Salminen D3-Racing KTM 250 EXC-F
2. Tom Sagar D3-Racing 450 EXC-F
3. Simon Wakeley Husky 250
Result Day 2:
1. Juha Salminen D3-Racing KTM 250 EXC-F
2. Tom Sagar D3-Racing 450 EXC-F
3. Daryl Bolter Husky 125
Next Event: Rd 5 WEC, Canada 21/22 JulyEvent:
8-10th June Erzberg Red Bull Rodeo & Endurocross
Taddy & Tom’s Erzberg Red Bull Rodeo 9th and 10th June
Tom Sagar made a very worthwhile trip to Austria to impress in front of a
large international crowd at this year’s Erzberg Rodeo, with several
big names on the entry list top ten results would have been good at this first
appearance at the Erzberg mountain.
D3-Racing has a good track record at this event, twice winning before with David Knight so we know what to expect and how to prepare, Tom listened well and took advice from seasoned professionals like Juha Salminen. Over 1100 riders try to qualify for this race via the prolog, a 10 mile race up the mountain’s roads averaging around 60mph!, each driver has 2 attempts and the fastest run counts. Tom’s best time was 26th which was good enough for a front row start in the top 50 for Sundays Red Bull Hare Scramble with 500 starters.
For Saturday a new race was introduced to this festival, an outdoor Endurocross, a small track comprising of several rock and log sections, big lorry tyre’s and a sandy hill climb, very much a track to suit trials riders. 10 riders qualified for this, the fastest 5 amateurs and the top 5 pro’s starting in 2 rows with Amateurs having a 10 second head start. Of the pro’s Fast Eddy quickly took the lead but tangled with an amateur in a tyre section so Tom charged through and took the lead through to the finish, never making a mistake. Following closely was Polish world trials ace Taddy Blazusiak who showed amazing skills riding a KTM for the 1st time. These two former European trials contenders entertained the crowd for 8 laps and showed that for Sunday’s race they must be considered as serious challengers now.
The main event of this amazing festival is the Erzberg Hare Scramble on Sunday starting at 12.00pm in temperatures exceeding 35 degrees and nearly 40 km’s of the hardest trails on this mountain. 10 rows of 50 riders starting at minute intervals, once again Fast Eddy took the holeshot with Werner Muller following close, race Favorite Salminen was last away and Tom made a mid pack start and had work to do. The first 5km’s are very fast with lots of dust & big quarry hill climbs, not easy to pass other riders especially as at the start the big 4 strokes have an advantage of power, Tom riding a 250EXC 2 stroke started very aggressively and quickly moved inside the top 10 and once they arrived in the more technical sections he then moved into the lead just before the railway line. A small problem on a steep section when the bike behaved strange as if choked and the trials ace Taddy Blazusiak took over at the front. Tom and Taddy now pulled a large lead on the rest of the field, their small 2 stroke KTM’s proving to be best suited to this terrain along with their trials skills. Further down the field Salminen who gated dead last had worked his way to third but was about 5 minutes behind the leaders. Taddy was the 1st to enters Karl’s Dinner the famous rock section around 800 metres long , Tom managed to regain the lead here taking some smarter lines but crashed just after in the woods giving back the lead to Taddy. These two then entered the final rock section the Roof of Africa about 1 minute apart, this section is incredibly hard due to new rock falls and would test who would have any energy left. Of course the trials experts made it look easy but Tom made a small mistake as the bike washed down hill in a loose section. Taddy Blazusiak took a well earned win with Tom a further 5 minutes behind. The two young guns who were not pre event favorites proved anything can happen at Erzberg and does.
Result:
1. Taddy Blazusiak KTM 250 EXC 2T
2. Tom Sagar D3-Racing, KTM 250 EXC 2t
3. Juha Salminen KTM 300 EXC
4. Wayne Braybrook, Gas Gas 300
5. Paul Edmondson, Suzuki 250