Insiders are not fooled by the heavenly beauty of the Austrian "Steiermark" - cause once a year, the "mountain of iron" calls for the ultimate offroad-spectacle.
For the 11th time the erzbergrodeo takes place - with a new challenge, for big, strong twin-cylinder-bikes only: the so called King´s class.
B. Hauser, S. Kirssi, J. Lewis, C. Pfeiffer
The BMW Motorrad Enduro Team Feil sends its top-riders Simo Kirssi, Jimmy Lewis and last year´s winner of the Hare Scramble Chris Pfeiffer on HP2 Enduro in the race. 13,3 kilometers up the hill of rough gravel will be a tough test for the riders and bikes.
Chris Pfeiffers strategy for the two runs of the challenge was simple: "Always at full speed." If the times of a rider´s two runs are more than 60 seconds apart, a 30 second penalty is added to his personal best for the final result.
the equipment should be ready to go
Before a cheering crowd in downtown Eisenerz Berti Hauser, General Manager Motorsport BMW Motorrad, started - as the first contestant - the chase up the hill.
Jimmy Lewis: pushin´ the limits
With Dr. Herbert Diess, General Manager BMW Motorrad, sending him as well the the officially supported Feil-Team on the track.
Chris Pfeiffer: Flat out
Then the big twins demonstrated why it´s called the King´s class: with a wild roar the bikes were thundering up the hill, sliding through the turns, accelerating hard up the long straights, reaching top-speeds of 180 kph!
Simo Kirssi
Rallye Dakar-experienced Jimmy Lewis were pushin´ the limits.
The Flying Fin
Afterwards stating: "I´m quite sure that in some corners nobody went faster than me". The "Flying Fin" Simo Kirssi, who some insiders already had on the list for the title, impressed everyone with the fastet run of the day: 9:11,91 min.
Unfortunately a technical problem stopped him 300 m short of the finish line which caused a 30 sec. penalty.
At the press-conference - after a most exciting day of offroad-fun - stunt and trial expert Pfeiffer commented: "It´s amazing that someone like me, who spends 90% of his time on motorcycles in first and second gear and who lacks offroad-experience, obviously can be that fast on the HP2 Enduro.
The controllability and grip of the bike is amazing." With two excellent runs he finished second, only 1,2 sec. behind the winner Giovanni Sala. With Kirssi on fourth and Lewis on fifth the conclusion of this hardcore-test for the HP2 Enduro can only be: Mission completed. And there´s more to come.
The Instructor Team of the BMW Motorrad Rider Training also had lots of fun, while presenting their travel and training program to the offroad crowd. With Andi Rothballer on eighth, Robert Schweiger (11.) and Tomm Wolf (24.) they showed the audience where to go in order to train your offroad skills: to the Enduro Park Hechlingen, Germany.
