Off Track: CEC Update

 

“Dan, this was a crazy race!” Giroux told me. “Saturday was the Extreme-Cross, and there was a set of logs we could double. I bent my brake pedal right before and when I tried to jam on the brake above the second log I cartwheeled my brains out! I had to go to the LCQ and got a last place start. I re-broke my brake pedal but I passed everybody and won. I had to put on another brake pedal for the final.”

 

Unfortunately for Giroux, Saturday’s problems were just a preview of Sunday’s race.

“The race on Sunday was so dusty,” Giroux continued. “Two guys went down and got hurt. I hit one of their bikes in the dust and re-broke my brake pedal! I had to stop after the first lap and put on a part from my CEC bike. By the time I got back in the race I was behind all the intermediates. I passed all of them but was still last place in the Pro class. By lap three I had worked my way up to fourth. Once I took over the lead I stretched it until I ran out of fuel! In an hour and 30 minutes I ran the tank dry…I ran through the woods screaming until I found someone with a gas can! I was three minutes behind by the time I got going, but got back on it and ended up winning by two minutes. It was just a crazy race, 30 degrees and really dusty. I guess everyone else got tired and I just passed them all! There were about 20 pros, 17 of them on KTMs, me on my Beemer and a couple of Yamahas. The BMW is working really well now and we beat everybody, so BMW should be really pleased. I should be in Alberta for the CEC on Wednesday, so I’ll talk to you then and try to send you some pictures.”

 

Giroux is ready for the Canadian Enduro Championship.

 

Speaking of the Royal Distributing Canadian Enduro Championship, the opening round is this Saturday, July 4 in Blairmore, Alberta. I spoke to a couple of the series organizers to get a feel of how things are shaping up. “Things are coming together really well,” Lawrence Hacking told me. “We’ve got a lot of things on the go, but the program is done and we have 25 Eastern amateurs and Pros making the trek to Alberta this week.”

 

Royal Distributing provided their semi to help any Eastern riders needing to get their bikes and gear out West. I spoke to Kurtz Trucking and World Enduro Canada’s Trevor Wideman while he was riding shotgun in the fully loaded transport. “We’re in the truck now, heading West,” he said. “We should be out there on Wednesday.” Bigger news? He told me “I will be going online from the race and posting same-day results on our website www.worldendurocanada.com”. Can you imagine, a media-friendly off-road race in Canada with up to the minute results? My mind reels…the future is good!

 

Anyway, another of the series sponsors, Rekluse, sweetened the CEC pot by announcing they will be awarding one of their magic automatic clutches to the fastest amateur rider in the Extreme test at each round. That will be sweet, because if the Extreme tests are anything like the ones we saw at the World rounds those riders old clutches will be fried into bacon bits.

 

Part of the magic of the Royal Distributing Canadian Enduro Championship is that the best off-road racers in Canada will be pitted against each other for the first time, in very different geographical settings. Unlike a groomed motocross track, each round of the series will be completely different and will showcase the unique qualities of that region. Most of the fast Western guys have been to Ontario to race the World Enduro Championship rounds in 2006 and 2007, so they have an idea of what to expect. For most of the Eastern riders however, heading West presents a brand new challenge.

 

A chat with Husaberg’s Shane Cuthbertson tonight tied all this stuff together neatly, stuff being Erzberg, fast guys on weird bikes and East vs. West at the CEC. Cuthbertson, a four-time Alberta Hare Scramble Champion and two-time ISDE Silver Medallist, has twice finished in the top-ten at Red Bull Extreme races like Last Man Standing and Romaniacs. Erzberg didn’t go as well as he’d hoped when his good start went down the tubes after a trip over the bars damaged his bike. Once he got going again Cuthbertson still managed to hammer his way from 500^th to 90^th overall. Can you even imagine?

 

Husaberg's Shane Cuthbertson.

 

“That mountain has a curse on me,” Cuthbertson joked about Erzberg. “Last year I broke my ankle and this year I just had crappy luck…” Ya, whatever. Like passing 410 guys is crappy luck…I passed a guy once on a trail ride once I think. Anyway, back to his story. “I think, like everyone else, that I am curious to see how the CEC series is going to work out,” he said. “Having the Eastern guys come out will be interesting. For an Alberta guy like me, we don’t even get to ride with the BC guys much. The Alberta and BC rounds are right deep in the mountains. It will be different for the Eastern guys, but they are all good riders and I am sure they will figure it out. It will be a neat dynamic for everyone to finally match up against each other. This series is such a positive thing for Canada; we’ve wanted it for so long, so I am glad it happened while I am still racing.”

 

The new Husabergs are cool and unique looking with their forward-tilted engine, but like you I wondered if they were more an engineering project than racer. Cuthbertson set the record straight. “I’m riding a 570 and it is my favourite bike ever. It just really suits me since it is very light handling and agile for a big bike. I had two-strokes and four-strokes at the same time, but when I hooked up with Husaberg last year I switched to just four-strokes. It was more difficult for me to adapt to the 2008 bike, but with the all-new 2009 I am definitely sticking with it. It just fits me so well and works so well it’s amazing. It’s super smooth…deceiving because you get going ultra fast and don’t even know it. It handles like a trials bike, that’s the best way I can put it. It is so neutral; your forward, backward and side-to-side movements take zero effort. With all the extreme events I do, well I can move this bike around just like I do my trials bike. I hadn’t raced too much fast stuff on it until Cornergrass last weekend, which was pretty fast and moto-style, and the bike worked good there too. So I have no complaints at all.”

 

The 2009 angle engine Husaberg 570.

 

It obvious Cuthbertson likes the Husaberg bike, but he also likes the Husaberg team and the opportunities they have given him to race in Europe. “I am heading back over to Europe in August to race Red Bull Romanics, between the Canadian Enduro rounds. Husaberg likes it when we come over to race in Europe because all they have to do is have a bike and some parts ready for us. We pay our way over there, myself and two crew, and they do the rest. For Husaberg it’s a way to get some great publicity, so it’s a win-win situation. Hopefully I will get some decent results so I can stick with them for another year or two. It will be interesting to see how the year shakes up!”

 

Cuthbertson racing at Cornergrass in Alberta.

Interesting is the key word when it comes to the upcoming Royal Distributing Canadian Enduro Championship. Interesting venues. Interesting riders. Interesting motorcycles. No, dirt bike racing hasn’t become stagnant. It just ran for the hills. I suggest you follow suit and run for the hills this summer to catch one of the CEC rounds and see for yourself. In the meantime you can taste the trees by watching this clip from last weekends World Enduro Championship race in Slovakia.