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Young wins SA Enduro challenge

Wade Young (Yamaha) has been added to the list of Castrol Winterberg Enduro winners, as he won the fifth round of the 2012 National Enduro Championship held in the Eastern Cape in August.

Young, who is the 2011 Junior National Champion, competed for the first time in the Castrol Winterberg Enduro and also won E2 (200cc Class). He beat the 2011 race winner and title holder, Chris Birch (BELL ACR KTM) by 14 points (seconds). Birch lost time when he fell in the first motocross-type section when he made a mistake at a corner and ended up underneath his bike.

Birch won E1 (Open Class) and was only six points ahead of the three-times winner of this event and the current leader of the overall standings, Jade Gutzeit (Yamaha) who finished third overall.

GOOD RACE

Yound said he enjoyed the race as it was “trouble-free” and he also felt the level of difficulty of the special timed sections were perfect. Gutzeit, who has won this event in 2003, 2005 and 2010, claimed that “this is how an enduro should be”, while Birch admitted it was more difficult than the previous year but still enjoyable.

Competitors had to complete the 34km loop three times and finished the race off with one last stint on the spectator-friendly mx-type track. Also included was 27km loop which had a longer 14km special timed stage that riders had to do twice.

The route had to be changed during their first attempt of the 14km stage due to a bottleneck situation that was created by struggling riders on a tricky uphill section resulting in the times posted in this section to be scrapped. Therefore only their racing times posted after the second 14km stage counted towards the final results.

RACERS RANKS

The 2009 winner of this event, Altus de Wet (KTM), finished second in E2 and was fourth overall after a trouble free race. He was followed by his team-mate, Louwrens Mahoney (who won in 2004) who rounded off the E1 podium. Marc Torlage (Yamaha) lost time when his bike stalled a few times in the mx-type section and was third in E2 and sixth overall while Bradley van Aswegen (Yamaha E2) finished seventh; Kenny Gilbert (Yamaha E1) was eighth followed by the two KTM riders, Riaan van Niekerk (E2) and Darryl Curtis (E1). Both Van Niekerk and Curtis have been riding and training with the bikes they will use for the 2013 Dakar Rally and admitted they had to get used to their ‘smaller’ enduro bikes.

Scott Bouverie (KTM E2) was in action for the first time in six weeks and finished 11th while Brian Capper (KTM E1) was 12th after a frustrating race. Nicholas Pienaar (RAD Moto KTM E1) was 13th; JC de Bruyn (Yamaha E2) finished 14th with James Hodson (Yamaha E2) rounding off the top 15. Also in the top 20 was Mark Garland (Yamaha E1) who finished 16th; the 2006 Castrol Winterberg Enduro winner, Juan ‘Bollie’ van Rooyen (Kawasaki Racing E1) who was 17th ,Cuan Rootman (Yamaha E1) – 18th; Mark Fox (KTM / Ribco E1) – 19th and Lloyd Vercueil (Yamaha E1) who finished 20th.

Defending Senior Class champion, William ‘Wild Will’ Gillit (Yamaha) scored his third victory of the season and also confirmed the 2012 championship Senior Class title. The season-long battle between himself and Jodi Engelbrecht (Yamaha) was interrupted with Engelbrecht not competing due to illness. Bruce May (Yamaha) finished second with Steve Landman (Yamaha) third after not competing for a few months due to an injury. Bruce Gargan (Yamaha) was fourth; Matthew Barker (Yamaha) finished fifth; Dricky Morkel (KTM) was sixth and Peter Jung (KTM / Ribco) was the last finisher in this class.

MASTER CLASS

While there was yet another fairly easy victory for the current Master Class champion, Denzil Torlage (Yamaha), who also secured the 2012 Master Class title, there were no points for Graydon Ilderton (KTM) who was second in the championship. He made a mistake by tackling the wrong loop according to the sequence he had to follow and will now drop on the overall standings in this class. Carl Rohrbeck (KTM) finished second and was followed by Kevin Bremner (KTM) and Evan Woodgate (KTM).

The competition in the Silver Class Challenge was tough with local Port Elizabeth youngster, Andrew Wren (Extreme Yamaha) beating the more experienced PE rider, Scott Woods (Rock Garden Gas Gas). Riaan van der Walt (KTM) was third, but is still leading the class standings.

The final round of the 2012 Liquorland National Enduro Championship will take place in KwaZulu-Natal on 20 October.

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