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Photo - Mitchell on the Colemans Husqvarna WR250
A report from Mitchell Nield, a young guy who just turned 16 during the Suzuki NZ 2004 National Enduro series. He is in at the deep end riding Experts with commendable results and he hopes to compete in the A4DE next year.
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National Enduro - Rd 6, Final @ Santoft.
The sixth round of the National Enduro series was held in Santoft, Bulls, and a bloody cold place it is too. We stayed in a place called Tangimoana Beach, about half an hour from where the race was, and when we got up on Sunday morning to leave there was thick ice on the roof and windscreen, so on with the thermals and off to the event.
We arrived and signed on, I got on minute 4 which was pretty good because there would already be some lines on the tracks but they wouldn’t be too cut up.
After riders briefing I went to the start. They had said first rider was away at 10:00, but it was nearly time for the first rider to go and there was no one to open the check. Of course they did come in time, but it had the riders a little stressed.
My minute came up, my Colemans Husqvarna WR250 started well and off I went. The first section was only short and I arrived with plenty of time to spare. The second section was huge, 115 minutes long! Not far into this section I passed someone who had fallen off in this swampy stuff. I was holding a good pace until I went up the wrong side of a fallen tree and had to go back around.
A few people got past me but I caught them back up and we stayed together for the rest of the section. There was also a nice log about half a metre high that you had to go over. I got over no trouble although I did put a bit of a mark in my pipe. The terrain test at the end of this section was a MX test that we ended up doing a few times. At the end of it there were two sand doubles. The first time I didn’t do them but after the next section we did this test again and I went huge over them and cleared both of them which was good fun.
The fourth section had an average speed of 30kmh and went down the beach for quite a long way and then back up over all the driftwood and into the trees. At the end of this section I had a short break and filled up with gas again before going out on the expert only section. This had an average speed of 42kmh, which is pretty fast, and when we did it earlier in the day it was at a 24kmh average. I was going pretty good until I came to a piece where they had changed the track to cut out the bogholes but at the stepped up speed average I didn’t see the arrow and I went into the bogholes again, instead of out onto the forest road. I got through the first few but got stuck in the biggest one. If only I had gone down the other side of the fence, bugger.!!! I couldn’t get my bike out on my own but along came Sean Clarke ( yep, I wasn’t the only expert who missed the arrow change). He helped me pull my bike out of the rut and carried on.
I went to start my bike but my kick start had seized in because of all the wet black sand and when I was trying to get it open I slipped back into the rut again. Then Chris Power got stuck behind me so we helped each other get our bikes out and put them over the fence onto the road that every one else who’d seen the arrow had been going down. I tried to start my bike, it wouldn’t go and it took me awhile to get it going. Finally I did and finished the section, but ended up losing 28 minutes, which was the most time I lost by far at any of the National rounds. I ended up 6th on the day and 4th overall in the series in the Expert 201 to open 2 stroke, which was pretty good for my first National series, and I think I was the youngest Expert, as I only turned 16 during the series.
All in all it was a good ride with an unfortunate finish but as it was the last round of the 2004 National Enduro series I have a bit of time to train and practice before the first round in 2005. Hope to see you all there again.
I would like to thank all the people who organized the events and helped out and everyone who supported me throughout the series, including Northern Accessories, Colemans, Team Wicked Racing, Nani and Grandad and Mum and Dad.
Thanks heaps.
Mitchell Nield.
