G-Mountain Cup 2015

The terrain around Salzburg is super rocky. Our local track X-BOWL Arena has done an amazing job of bringing in hundreds (thousands?) of tons of sand to make a really nice surface at our local track, but I grew up riding motocross around fields as a kid in England in Kent on dirt, so when Haibike Mountain bike pro rider, and moto fan Guido Tschugg invited me to come and ride some plowed fields with him and a few friends I jumped at the chance!

Then he mentioned he would make a race, just a small thing, 20-25 people. Of course, this quickly turned into 50 people and a pretty decent day of racing was on the cards! Having not raced MX for 15 years, I had forgotten how much of a buzz it was!

I had to leave before the awards ceremony to pick up my kids so I don’t know the final results, but for the record, Guido Won every race he entered as well as the overall on his brand new KTM 350 SX-F. Not only is he a pro mountain biker, he could have probably been a pro motocrosser too!

Everybody who raced on the day had a great time and many stories to tell, but since this is my blog, in case you are interested, here is my story!

Well, I totally blew the start of the first race that’s for sure! They didn’t have gates, and there was something about raising a hand, and then something else I didn’t catch to set the race off, so I was still looking around wondering what was going on when my first race kicked off and as a result I hit the first corner dead last! I made up quite a few spots on the first lap and then spent the next 12 minutes in a train of 5 riders getting roosted, and trying and failing to make passes and didn’t finish high enough to make it to the A class final. Lucky for me there was a last chance qualifier race, which to my surprise I holeshot!

Christian Kerstens, president of the local Motocross club (X-Leo in Unterreit) passed me on the 2nd corner and I stayed close before stalling in a corner a few laps later. The electric start button worked a charm though and I was off before anybody caught up, and so I came home in 2nd! First loser!

Arriving back in the pits exhausted, I took my helmet off and sat down, only for my friends to tell me I had to go to the start for the main final. WTF! Haha. I got to the line last, and the grid was full, so I was stuck in the 2nd row. Needless to say, my race was over before it even began, but man was it fun!

At one point I caught up to my usual riding buddy Zajcer after he fell, and tried to pass him for half a lap, before over cooking it on a long off camber right hander trying to take a tight line. The Dunlop MX32 Tires are amazing, but I have 20 hours riding on mine and they are now pretty beat so I lost the front end and and went down. Some fellow following me on a Suzuki clipped me as I went down and fell himself and started screaming at me when he got up. Not sure why he was so agro, wasn’t like I meant to fall! Anyway, also not sure where I finished, but who cares, fun was had!

Actually I do care, I’m going to start training for next years race already, because I’d like to do better than this year!

Photos by Zajcmaster, myself and Reno.