http://www.adbmag.com.au JANUARY 2018 | 169A
fter the highs of
Matt Phillip’s
EGP-winning run
in 2016, the sequel
brought us
c r a s h i n g b a c k t o
earth. On paper, it
looked like it
would be another big one for Australia
on the world stage.
Phillips was out to defend his title
with Sherco, while reigning
Australian Off-Road Champion Daniel
‘Chucky’ Sanders was tipped to
conquer the world after inking a deal
to race E2 with the KTM factory team.
But things didn’t really go to plan
for the two Aussies, or the series as a
whole. In fact, there was some very
bad vibes surrounding the series, with
Phillips quitting and, as we went to
print, there was talk of Husqvarna
and KTM pulling the pin, the latter
leaving Chucky without a ride.
Looking at the bigger picture,
enduro as a discipline seems to be
struggling. The Australian Four-Day
Enduro in Toowoomba was cancelled
and, aside from the ISDE, there seems
to be worldwide disillusionment with
a format that used to be extremely
popular among dirtbike riders.
So what is wrong? Well, for starters,
the times are-a-changing, as Bob
Dylan famously sang, and the enduro
powerbrokers don’t seem to be
keeping up.
We sat down with Sanders and
Phillips to see how they went and to
find out what they think about the
sport and, in particular, the EnduroGP
series. Their thoughts tend to echo
those of the dirt riding public.
Tasmanian Phillips believes the
series lacks enthusiasm. “The races
have become races and not the ‘events’
that they once were,” he says. “We go
to the race and it’s unorganized. The
[nearest] city doesn’t know the race is
happening and there is no
atmosphere.” While Phillips says this
didn’t apply to every round, he found
it was far too common.
“I felt like, when I started, it was
like going to a week-long party, a real
event that you came home from and
thought, ‘that was insane!” he says.
“Now it’s like, ‘I hope the next one is
better than this one’.”
Victorian Sanders says the better
races were run in conjunction withanother event, such as a national
championship round. “When it was
run with a national race, they had
300 riders and big crowds,” he
says. “But we went to Spain and
they just went to the local club and
ran a dustbowl track. Hungary and
Portugal were 40 degrees and dust.
I never enjoyed riding tracks like
that ever. There was no one in the
pits, it was just dead. I think they
had 45 riders at one of the races in
Greece. That’s pretty disappointing
for the world championship.
“But at the last round in Germany,
I’ve never seen so many people at a
motorbike race. Someone said the last
time there was 40,000 people there. I
didn’t think that was possible, but
when I got there, all the trails were
lined with people, there were cars
everywhere on the roads. It was
unreal. That’s what I expected all the
events to be like when I came to
Europe to race.”
Chucky thinks that the European
Enduro Championship is a much
more appealing series than
EnduroGP. “The entry fee is a lot
cheaper, the quality of the tracks
looks better and I think the riders are
getting paid in that series too.”
Part of the problem, it seems, is that
EnduroGP isn’t attracting enough
riders. Phillips thinks that there isn’t
enough motivation for them to attend.
“The race is now EnduroGP. It has put
all the best riders together in one class
with different bikes."ELITIST SPORT
“I spoke to the FIM about how
enduro is not an elitist sport and that
people want to come and do their
best. Anything after third place, for a
factory rider, may as well not even
exist. Sponsors only read the paper
on Monday.”
In 2016, the series introduced an
EnduroGP overall class in addition to
E1, E2, and E3. Phillips won that first
‘overall’ title, but as with Chucky, he
didn’t believe it helped the sport and
thought that it shut the door on
non-successful or non-factory riders.
In addition, Chucky thinks that the
promoters are choosing tracks based
on getting the elite riders to races,
while excluding hundreds of expert
and clubman level riders. “Half of our
expert field wouldn’t get around theTragedy
Strikes
Jonathan Barragán, who fi nished the
EnduroGP series in ninth, lost his brother
in a tragic training accident during the
season. Despite the tough time, Barragán
continued racing for Gas Gas. His ride in
EnduroGP coincided with the debut of
Gasser's EC250 on the world
championship stage. Perhaps ironically, it
comes as KTM and Husqvarna talk about
leaving the series.Chucky reckons the clubmen need a chanceThe series doesn't attract enough ridersRiders struggled in the Finnish weatherPhillips thinks the series lacks enthusiasm