countries over the past few years, including
at the notorious Romaniacs Hard Enduro in
Romania – ended day two with a massive
16-minute lead over runner-up Buxton and
the rest of the chasing pack.
“Day two went really well. It was a big day,
with probably 170 kilometres of riding, and
fortunately I didn’t make any mistakes,” said
Birch.
“But then I stuffed up day three,” he laughed.
“My plan for day three was just to take it
easy and ride along with the other guys. I
got to the top of a big hill-climb and then
chose the wrong track, got lost and ended up
circling around to end up back at the bottom
of the hill.
“I had to go pretty crazy after that to catch
up again.
“Then I had a stick go through my radiator
and I could feel my boot getting really wet
with hot water. I used some cable ties to
stem the leak and I thankfully made it to the
finish.”
Birch ended up winning by two minutes 40
seconds over Buxton, an uncomfortably tight
margin after racing for more than 12 hours.
“I was really impressed with the KTM 300EXC.
It has different suspension and chassis to the
previous model and it really suited the tough
conditions.”
Resilience and reliability was key and all but
one of the gold grade riders were on either
KTM or Husqvarna motorcycles, testimony to
the trust that riders place in these bikes.
Rotorua’s Bradley Lauder (Husqvarna TE300)
rounded out the top five in the gold grade.
The top three riders in the Silver grade
were Te Puke’s Paul Singleton, followed
by Reporoa’s Brad Kilgour and Tokoroa’s
Warwick Batley. In the Bronze grade, the
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BIRCH
BUXTON
top three were Auckland’s Claude Sabatier,
Okere Falls rider Lance Roozendaal and
Christchurch’s Luke Corson claimed third
overall for the series.