with the finish two metres on the other side. We lined all the bikes up, hauled and lifted and pushed them over to the finish line, one at a time. Gasping, we finished in a time of just over a minute. We were all pretty stoked with that thinking we had set a pretty slick time. However, the West Balkan Team did it in just over 30 seconds – bloody amazing! Mind you, they were big lads and I reckon just one of them could have tossed a bike clean over the log from start to finish if they’ d really tried. The final test was several of Day One’ s offroad sections linked together with the most difficult bits removed, making for a flowing and twisting cross-country course. It was a fun blast, but I think we were all happy to finish after a fairly long day. While the terrain wasn’ t that difficult, there was no relaxing in the rocks and sticks and jumps etc. As we pulled up to the checkered flag, we were given a very cool finishers medal with a tag line on the back saying‘ Experience More Together’. We had certainly just done that. Then it was time to head back to the hotel for a shower and to tart our selves up for dinner and the prize giving. As a team we decided to wear our CFMOTO T-shirts to dinner we’ d
received in our goodie pack, I think all of us quietly hoping we had done enough to get on the podium.
TEAM KIWI ON TOP Throughout the event, I had genuinely been blown away by the professionalism. Nothing was over looked, it all ran like clockwork and all the organisation was fabulous, but the main thing that stood out was the friendliness of the CFMOTO team. As I walked in to the prize-giving area in the middle of the crowd, Neil Tang( CFMOTO’ s mega boss) said,“ Congratulations!” I asked what for, and he said“ You guys have won.” I just replied, thank you, while he went on to say not to tell anyone as the prize-giving hadn’ t happened. What a cool dude. If the event so far had been epic, the prizegiving was next level. It had everything; stunning trophies, cool prizes, Champagne, traditional dancing, a fantastic DJ and … gold medals for the Kiwi team! It really was a night to remember. CFMOTO excelled to create a fabulous event. For this unexpected ring-in, it was an absolute honour and privilege to be part of the team.
50 KIWI RIDER