Australasian Dirt Bike — January 2018

154 | JANUARY 2018 http://www.adbmag.com.au

There’s plenty of Aussie riders who

bang on about racing Romanics and

Erzberg but they don’t front up for

Wildwood. Beats me why you would

travel the globe in search of

punishment when you can get a

flogging right here in our backyard for

much less money.

That salty off-road legend Ben

Grabham figured it out and signed up

for the 2017 Wildwood. He hadn’t

raced since 2013 and it’s fair to say

he’s been enjoying a non-racing life

that allows him the odd rum or two.

Grabbo made a name for himself as

a king of the Outback by winning the

Finke Desert Race four times but he’s

also won numerous Australian

Off-Road Championships and a couple

of Australian Four-Day Enduro

outright titles. Ben has never been an

extreme practitioner, so it was always

going to be entertaining watching him

take on Wildwood alongside Young.

HERE’S HOW THEY TELL IT:

BEN GRABHAM

Having been a racer I’ve missed the

competitive side of things and

pushing my body. You can actually

get sick of drinking rum and eating

pizza so it’s been good to have that

adrenalin fix again. I do enjoy racing

motorbikes and I’m half keen on doing

a bit more.

I don’t know why I decided to do

Wildwood. I tried it back in 2011 and

hated it.

Maybe I’ve had too many rums or

something, but I decided to give it a go

and I chose my bike carefully, a Beta

Xtrainer 300. It’s the same bike as that

which Tim Coleman rode to second at

Wildwood last year. It’s the easiest

bike to ride in this shit when you

don’t have legs as long as some of

these pro guys. I’m not the silliest

person when it comes to trying to

make things easy. I don’t like to do

things the hard way, even though I

did this stupid race.

STEADY AS SHE GOES

I took it really gently off the start and I

can honestly say this was the first

time in my life that I haven’t got

sucked into worrying about what the

guy in first was doing. I was riding

around and actually feeling happy

with myself that I wasn’t thinking

about winning but more thinking,

“okay, this is what it is. The training

from all those years ago is going to

take a while to kick back in, just

circulate and have some fun”.

I got a kick out of the experience on

the very first lap. I came to some of

the rocky sections and there were

young factory guys with steam

coming off them. I helped some of

them up the hills to get them out of

my way so I could get through! These

guys are getting paid to do this stuff

and that made me laugh.

I got a bit tired at about the three-

hour mark, smashed into a rock and

derailed the chain in the Rock

RACE WRAP I WILDWOOD ROCK

Garden. Years ago, I would have been

pissed off at myself and panicked but

I just worked out what was wrong, set

it right and got into it again.

EXTREME CHALLENGE

The Force Accessories Hill was the

most challenging for me. It was hard,

but not crazy hard. If you use your

brain and think about it nothing is

impossible, it’s just relentless.

In the four hours of racing I reckon I

only had one clear run at the two

nastiest hills. It was like a trailriding

mentality. I’d line up at the bottom

and wait for the dude in front of me to

clear it so I could get a run, then three

riders would jump in front of me. I

just laughed at them.

Grabbo tries to ignore the chainsaw and airhorns Wil Ruprecht makes like a rock climber The Rock Garden is hard and the

The Rock Garden was as unforgiving as ever