Excitement (and Crashes ?) Guaranteed
Te Puke Endurocross 9th Feb 2013
The Endurocross organized by the Te Puke Motorcycle Club and Sean Clarke is an event not to be missed, a fabulous opportunity to see top motorcycle riders challenging and being challenged over the obstacle course that has, for the 4th year running, been set up at the Te Puke A&P Show venue.
This is an absolutely great spectator event, excitement and crashes guaranteed. In endurocross anything can happen. With obstacles, anything can happen. However, everything is manageable too and if you want to ride and see how you measure up to the challenge, it’s not too late. This is the time and the place where faster riders can be beaten. So,– check out the Silver Bullet website for details.
The “obstacles” are all in place, the track is all set up and they’ve been carting water all day – 20,000 litres so far - so everything will be absolutely perfect for Saturday.
Some
obstacles are similar to last year - the car bonnets, the strainer posts in
bundles will be there along with the rock garden, the water pools, the sand
corner and the logs, the upright tyres and the lying flat tyres and the whoopee
section.
However this time, there are 2 bundles of strainers pushed together, riders should be able to jump the first water pool and land in the second (second option is just to go over the bars), the “easy” inside line of the sand corner has wood buried in it and the logs are bigger than average.
Some logs are humungous. 4 wide 3 metre logs run lengthways with a plank just wider than a rear wheel as an access ramp. Riders are about 700mm off the ground and you jump off the other end.
The tyres too have a different layout. There is a set of upright tyres to go over and then a set of alternating small and huge upright tyres, just to make things more interesting. And the flat lying tyres have been positioned on a 180 degree corner which will make steering pretty tricky.
New, for Te Puke, are the deer posts through off centre barrels. It is impossible to ride straight through . You need to jiggle your bars and the barrels will spin so the layout pattern will keep changing. With cunning manoeuvring, riders might just manage to block their rivals! And this time, also, the start is a truck deck.
The
intensity will be high, crashes are guaranteed, in fact, it promises to be a very
competitive event with riders from both mx/enduro and trials codes vying for
the glory and the $1000 prize money and awesome spot prizes that are up for
grabs. Trials riders have skills in the obstacle domain, mx/enduro riders have more speed. Both groups will
struggle at each other’s end of the spectrum.
But it’ll be loads of fun for both riders and spectators.
Jake Whitaker, Chris Power, Reece Burgess, Greg Dealtour, Jim Lowe-Pattie are amongst the confirmed names along with a host of other local and out of town riders. There are whispers, too, that Chris Birch might be tearing himself away from his newborn child to race as well.
Races will be run with 8 riders per heat with 4 going through to the next round until the final and the winners for 2013 become known.
This year, the Te Puke Endurocross is part of the KTM sponsored 4 round Extreme Endurocross Series. Te Puke is round 3 with the final round to be the No Way in Hell event at Oparau at the end of March.
And don’t forget, the Endurocross is part of the Te Puke A & P Show so there are heaps of other activities to do and see for all the family. Click here for more info.
