Australasian Dirt Bike – June 2019

There were

many moments

during the six

days when I

just wanted

to stop and

soak up the

surroundings

JUST STARTED #2 IRALLYING

What’s next?

TheHispaniaRallywasthestartofMichael’s

preparationfortheDakarin2020.Comingup

nextis thesecondroundoftheToutTerrain

RallyCup,thefamousHellasRallyinGreece.

Thenit’sthePanAfricainSeptemberandthe

RallyDuMaroc,finalroundoftheWorldCross

CountryRalliesChampionshipandtraditional

warm-upforDakar.“I’vealsobeenlucky

enoughtoscorea ridefora team,covering

thelastlegoftheBaja 1000 inMexicoin

November,”hesays.

The38-year-oldfatherofthreefrom

Bendigo,Vic,alsoaimstodovariousrounds

oftheVictorianOff-RoadChampionship,

AORC,theSunraysiaSafariRallyand

KalgoorlieDesertRace.“CompetingatDakar

willbea giantstep,bothphysicallyand

financially.Weareconfidentwehavethe

trainingregimeinplace,althoughwewill

needassistancefinanciallytoachieveour

goal,”hesays.

Youcancatchupwithhowtheeffort’s

goingorofferfinancialsupportonFacebook

at“MichaelBurgessDestinationDakar”.

There’sa lotofhotairblowingaroundinSpain

flights and riding gear. They charged

2550 Euros for the hire bike and

mechanical services.

Accommodation and flights was

roughly around 3000 and entry was

600, while tyres and mousses were

$1000 Euro, for a total of 7150.

The event was not what I expected,

as European rallies are a lot more

focussed on the navigation being

difficult and the course being

relatively slow. I found the roadbook

extremely hard to read compared to

here. It’s in French, just like Dakar,

and the abbreviations mean a sharp

learning curve.

Having said that, anyone from

advanced clubman level should be

able to compete. There were many

less-experienced riders who “timed

out” each day but they were allowed

to restart the following morning and

were marked as having completed

the event. If you were after a

competitive result then I would say

you would need to be Expert level.

I was extremely happy with 20th

outright and 10th in the 450cc class,

with the highlight being three top-10

Test times. That was better than

expected and very promising for the

second Tout Terrain Rally round in

Greece. Fellow Aussie Andrew

Houlihan, from Albury, also posted a

great result, with 27th outright.

That’s him running an Aussie fairing

behindmeonthepreviouspage.

Gotsomethingtosayaboutthisyarn?

[email protected]

More images and info at adbmag.com.au

106 |JUNE 2019 http://www.adbmag.com.au