My first race.

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ChrisMann

Race Dog
Joined
Oct 11, 2009
Messages
1,066
Reaction score
70
Location
Upington
Bike
KTM 990 Adventure
Took the KTM 300 to the Ariamsvlei Winterfees this weekend.  I was surprised to see the nr of contestants. They took their riding very serious. There was a mix of bikes, 450 RM's, 450 CRF's, YZF's and even a KX and KDX.

I was a bit late, and the riders already complete the "inspection" round when I arrived. Had some trouble at the border post with the bike. The organiser agreed to took me and some other guy who was also late to do our inspection ride. He got on a 525 Predator and off he went! We had to gun it to stay with him and when we got back I was already tired.  :p

The track was 15km in length and 80% is river beds and heavy sand. We only had to do 2 rounds, so it's definitely not an enduro. The other riders were a lot younger than me, and when I go to greet them they ask: "Oom, sal jy allright wees?"  :imaposer:

After the first round I though , ok you are going to be the slowest by far. Then I saw the time sheet and I was second fastest. Only 10 sec behind some wizz kid on a YZF 250 that raced since he was 3 weeks old.

Second round toe trap ek daai KTM'pie se gat vas. It must have been quite comical to watch, at some stage I was hanging on for dear life and was trying to close the throttle but simply just couldn't and hit a huge bump flat out. I land about ten meters after a marker for a sharp left turn. Then I made the stupidest mistake. 200m from the end I locked the brakes for a deep rut, stalled the bike and had to kickstart it and lost some valuable seconds. I managed to shave a whole minute from my first lap, but unfortunately, so did Wizzkid and he beat me with 2 seconds!

Well, for the whole weekend  I felt like a kid again and I wish I have had the the opportunity to race when I was growing up. Next up, looking to do a real enduro. Thx.


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