The Tough one – The best one

Wirral off Roads the Tough One marks the start of the 2007 Enduro and cross-country season, and for the massive crowd who witnessed it I am sure all will agree it was a fantastic start. Steve Ireland and his team as usual did a fantastic job and the Tough One was without doubt one of the very best staged off-road races in the UK and if not the World. Steve had suggested that this might be the last Tough One, I hope he re-considers because this format of racing and quality of event is exactly what the riders and spectators want and is why off-road racing is so exciting, nobody could disagree that it wasn’t superb value for money and very cheap considering you are `watching the worlds best competing for 2 hours on a grueling floodlight course and with the other races on the day made for a brilliant day out, compare it to other sports and their entrance fees !!!.

The Tough One attracted a quality field including overseas champions Anders Erickson from Sweden and Kari Tianen from Finland, The world 2 best extreme riders David Knight and Wayne Braybrook along with multi world enduro champ Paul Edmondson, besides these guys we had all the regular UK front runners and our very own European champ Tom Sagar. Kari Tianen had just returned from the Warmth of the Dakar to be greeted by the contrasting cold wet weather of England and rode a 400 KTM loaned by KTM UK and prepared by D3-Racing, Tom Sagar who will ride a 450EXC in regular enduro’s choose to ride a specially prepared D3-Racing 2 stroke 250 EXC for this event.

Approximately 80 riders lined up for the Le-mans type start just before 4.00pm, they were faced with a few hundred metre’s up hill jog in motocross boots !!! (Steve really knows how to make these boys suffer). Steve Ireland gave the starting orders and the sprint or crawl for some started, up front it was Braybrook, Knight and surprisingly young Sagar who reached their bikes first and this was the order for the first lap of the race. The first lap was completed in just under 8 minutes with Knight holding a bike lengths lead over Wayne and a further 20 seconds down was Sagar and Edmondson, these 4 riders had already pulled out a big lead on the first lap. A huge log pile marked the end of the lap and the lap scoring section, it claimed both Wayne and David who got stuck and tangled with each other, Sagar was the only rider to go through feet up trials style and made it look easy, however it wasn’t and the remaining field of riders had nightmares in this section despite several marshals pushing them through. It was a great spectator section but very difficult with all the mud and water coming on to the logs. After a few laps the log section was `removed as the rest of the course was challenging enough. For the first hour Knight and Braybrook battled hard, exchanging positions, a further 2 minutes back local boy Sagar battled with Edmondson. For the front runners the course didn’t prove too much of an issue, the biggest challenge for these guys was to get around and over take the back markers who blocked some of the more difficult stages. Chasing the front runners at the half way stage were amongst others Euan McConnel, Glen Kearney, Ady Smith, Carl Tiley, Anders Erickson and Kari Tianen but now the extra challenge of total darkness had arrived. Knight started to pull out a healthy lead and Tom had a few small issues which meant that Eddy pulled a small gap on him. The first 4 riders all finished in order of their half way positions, for Tom it was a big improvement on his last years `position at the Tough one and a superb start to his new season and was only beaten by his more experienced opponents.

Tom Sagar “ I really enjoyed the event it was way better than last years but I would I have liked to have seen a few harder sections to make it really tough, my KTM 250 was awesome and its so much easier riding a properly prepared Enduro bike as opposed to a converted motocrosser. I felt I was riding good enough for third but I had to make a few unscheduled pit stops to change gloves and I broke my main headlamp with about 40 minutes to go but apart from this I am really happy and confident for the forthcoming season.”

Result:

1. David Knight (Red Bull KTM Off Road Race Team 14 laps;

2. Wayne Braybrook (Gas Gas) 14 laps;

3. Paul Edmondson (Honda) 13 laps;

4. Tom Sagar D3-Racing KTM 250 EXC 13 laps;

5. Euan McConnell (TM) 13 laps;

6. Paul Bolton (Gas Gas) 12 laps;

7. Edward Jones (KTM) 11 laps;

8. Roland Morris (Gas Gas) 11 laps;

9. Anders Eriksson (Husqvarna) 11 laps;

10. Ady Smith (KTM) 11 laps;

11. Kari Tianen D3-Racing KTM 400 EXC ( 1st 4 stroke)