“Brutal but rewarding” was how New Zealand’s Hamish Macdonald described his latest outing in the World Enduro Championships in Europe.
“I just wrapped up round three of the Enduro GP in Estonia! It’s been a good race for me landing on the podium (third overall) both days and achieving 6th overall (also third overall in his E2 class),” said the 2020 New Zealand enduro champion from Christchurch.
Fellow Kiwi James Scott (Honda), from Oparau, in the Waikato region, made his world enduro championship debut in Estonia at the weekend and he finished a remarkable 30th and then 26th overall on the two days (11th then ninth overall in his E1 class).
Meanwhile, Macdonald (Sherco) tells us his story: “The tests were super physical, 8:30 minutes long deep sand enduro test, 7:30 minute hard pack ‘extreme’ test and a 4-minute motocross track as the cross test.
“I started Saturday off slow, I didn’t have the best feeling but dug deep in the last lap to come back from 5th in class onto the podium!
“I was fast in the enduro test and putting out consistent times all day, but it wasn’t easy.
“On Sunday the track got soooo rough.
“I can’t even explain, some holes exiting the corners where at least 1m deep! Once again the enduro test was my strong point, laying down top 3 times and having solid times in the extreme as well helped my result overall!
“I worked my way up to 4th coming into the second lap. Unfortunately I crashed in the enduro and lost 10-15 seconds and pushed hard in the next laps but when you push hard in these conditions you are bound to crash.
“Riding on the limit in the sand isn’t nice to do when you are tired, one small mistake and you will go down hard, and that’s what happened while I was battling in the final enduro test with Wil Ruphert (Aus) for 2nd position in the E2 class I had caught the rider in front of me, the dust was so bad and hit some rollers wrong in about 3rd gear, started to swap out and that’s all she wrote.
“I picked myself up, a bit of confusion of with what has happened, just imagine someone had tipped a bucket of sand over your head, sand was everywhere, inside my goggles in my eyes all inside my gloves.
“But I picked myself up and charged on, I knew I was faster than Wil in this test. I had lost my buffer and he was now leading my 0.06 coming into the final ‘super test’.
“I was pushing – bad luck happened – throwing my chain while going through the matrix, so that was my chance gone! But overall I’m happy with how I’m riding, finally starting to find that groove and feel at one with my bike.”
Photo supplied
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