Story: Noel Flatters - Editor, The Enduro Bureau
May 13, 2024

With the kick-off of the FIM Hard Enduro World Championship this past weekend in Wales we’re fully into the swing of the 2024 season! It was a big weekend of racing with the start of the FIM HEWC, EnduroGP Round 3 in Romania, and GNCC Round 7 in Ohio all going off. Let’s dive in and take a look at what went down!

FIM Hard Enduro World Championship Round 1 – Valleys Hard Enduro, Wales.

Let’s start off by taking a look back at what I had written after the announcement from Billy Bolt and Husqvarna that the British enduro hard man was going to miss at least the first half of the FIM championship following his knee surgery:

“It doesn’t take a genius to realise that this will have a major impact on the FIM Hard Enduro World Championship. Bolt was almost certainly going to be 2x defending champion Manuel Lettenbichler’s (FMF KTM Factory Racing) biggest threat this season. With Trystan Hart’s (FMF KTM Factory) announcement at King of the Motos that he would likely only be racing three rounds of FIM series this season, there is a very clear path for Lettenbichler to three-peat.

This does make the battle for the overall lower podium positions very interesting. There are a lot of talented riders that will be looking to increase point totals while Bolt is out. It will definitely be interesting to see if Teodor Kabakchiev can improve on his 2023 P5 overall with the support coming from his new team at Sherco Factory Racing. Sherco also has 2023 P4 overall finisher Mario Roman back this year, so it could be a good season for the blue bikes.”

Kabakchiev and Roman followed through for me in Round 1, going P2 and P3 respectively. It will be interesting to see if Kabakchiev can keep the momentum going in Erzberg at the end of the month. Even more interesting to see will be how Canada’s Trystan Hart slots into the field in the mine, with his statement to us back in January that Erzberg is his main goal of the season. Hart got his momentum back with his first win of the US Hard Enduro Series a couple of weeks ago in North Carolina, and hopefully he keeps it rolling in Austria!

EnduroGP Round 3 – GP of Romania

It was a very interesting three days of racing in Bacau in the GP series. Defending champion Steve Holcombe (Honda Racing RedMoto Enduro) and ISDE champion Josep Garcia (Red Bull KTM Factory Racing) came into Romania tied on points at 72 each, with Andrea Verona (GasGas Factory Racing) close behind in P3 overall. As I wrote in our preview of the weekend “Something’s gotta give” between the two off-road greats.

Well happen it did. The Akrapovic Super Test saw a surprise winner in E3 class rider Matteo Cavalo (TM Boano Factory), an unexpected P2 finisher in Zach Pichon (CH Racing Sherco), with Garcia in P3 and Holcombe a few positions further back.

Verona took the Day 1 overall, with Garcia in P2 and Holcombe in P3. This placed Garcia into the Series lead heading into Day 2 where he put it all together to take the victory. Verona had another great day finishing P2, and Brad Freeman (Beta Factory Racing) took the final podium spot. Holcombe, on the other hand, had a day he’d rather forget. He was only able to salvage a P5, 13:55 behind Garcia. This leaves Garcia in control of the series heading into Italy in June with 109 points to Verona’s 99 and Holcombe’s 98. It’s great to see such a dogfight at the pointy end of EnduroGP!

GNCC Round 7 – Powerline Park, Ohio

Coming out of Round 6 of the GNCC series (The Hoosier) the big stories were Steward Baylor Jr. (Rocky Mountain Red Bear Kawasaki) taking his second straight win to take the momentum away from FMF KTM Factory Racing’s Jonny Girroir, and Rachael Walker’s (Rocky Mountain Red Bear Kawasaki) continued dominance of the Womens Elite field. Round 7 was another story as the Rockstar Energy Husqvarna Factory Racing team took over.

Defending GNCC champion Craig Delong (Rockstar Energy Husqvarna Factory Racing took the holeshot in XC1, and then took the lead for good on lap 2. Series points leader Girroir made it very close with Delong, but ended up settling for P2 1.2 seconds behind the winner. Grant Baylor (Babbitts Online/Monster Energy/Kawasaki Team Green) took 3rd overall. Steward Baylor had a rough one in Ohio and was only able to salvage P10 in the XC1 Open class, and 15th overall on the day. This leaves Girroir sitting a little more comfortably at the head of the overall series standings with 177 points to Steward Baylor’s 148.

On the women’s’ side Korie Steede put the Rockstar Energy Husqvarna Factory Racing team back on top of the box, too, beating out Brandy Richards (FMF KTM Factory Racing Landers), with Archer rounding out the podium positions. This was a great turnaround race for both Steede and Richards. Steede had been in position to challenge for the win at the previous round, only to run out of gas near the end of the race. Richards had an all-around tough day at The Hoosier, finishing well off the podium. It’s good to see these two US ISDE World Trophy champion riders getting right back into the swing of things! For the Canadian fans, Shelby Turner (Enduro Engineering/GasGas/FXR Moto) picked up P4 on the day and sits in 4th overall, just four points back of 2nd overall (Richards).

AMSA Provincial Off-Road Championship Series Round 1 – Alberta, Canada.

I headed up to Central Alberta on Saturday to cover the first round of the Alberta Provincial Off-Road championship. It was, for the most part, a really good day of racing on a fast track with a good combination of fast singletrack, grass track, and MX track. This year’s series is advertising a hefty purse for the Pro men, with the winner taking home $1,000. Not too shabby at all! Kevin Dupuis (BFD Moto/Husqvarna Canada/Fox Racing Canada) took home the provisional win over Jason Schrage (Honda Canada), but as of Monday afternoon results have still not been posted. A first lap issue that apparently saw a significant part of the Intermediate field going the wrong way on track and meeting Dupuis head-on (no crash, thankfully) has, from what I understand, put results into chaos. I reached out to AMSA yesterday and they were unable to provide an ETA on results, so I’m standing by on publishing my story from the event. Ultimately, it’s just good that everyone made it through that incident unscathed!

AMA US Hard Enduro East Round 2 – River Monster

The River Monster round of the US Hard Enduro East Series went off over the weekend. As a non-Premier round the heavy hitters weren’t out for this one, giving the rest of the field an opportunity to showcase their stuff. Quinn Wentzel (Rieju USA/Leatt/XC Gear) put some hurt on everybody by taking the win and having the fastest time at 11 checkpoints. Very solid stuff. James Flynn (IRC Beta) came east from his home in the Arizona desert and represented very well in the woods with a gritty P2. Youngster Gauge Key (HTR GasGas) picked up his first ever USHE podium with his P3. I also noticed that Ryder Guest (Kauai Racing Development / KTM) got in another mainland race and took 6th place. The KRD story is one of the most interesting ones in USHE, and I’ll be putting together a deeper look into their success story soon.