Jarvis, Birch and Bolton shine in Red Bull Romaniacs Prologue
A challenging Prologue, soaked by a thunderstorm just before the start and for the first time ever transmitted worldwide with a Live-HD-Video cast, dominated by Graham Jarvis
Graham Jarvis, Chris Birch and Paul Bolton nailed the finals in the short and very competitive races in pouring rain. After several days of scorching heat and a qualification for the prologue in beautiful weather, many thought that the brutal heat would be the main adversary of the riders, but… thunderstorms moved in and just before the kick-off of the prologue, the track became soaked in water. This neither impressed the riders nor the thousands of spectators who came to celebrate the sport of Extreme-Enduro.
But the „worst enemy” or best friend of the riders, depending on their love/hate for man-made obstacles, was Andy, our „Prologue mastermind” (and inventor). With 40 tons of stone, 50 cubic meters of logs, 30 cubic meters of sand and tons of used tires he built another inner-city Prologue that kept our competitors on their toes. „The riders were impressed and challenged with the track, the Hobby-Class riders naturally faced a bigger challenge then the Pros but adjusted well to the changing weather conditions. With the rain setting in, the challenge certainly went up a few notches, but this is what our riders signed up for,” states Andy. The Kriega-obstacle with the hanging tires was a fun element, liked by many – except the ones, whose front fender got caught in one of them. The freestyle-jump over the container was a bit tricky – due to the soft sand in the landing area, but our competitors managed well!”
Graham Jarvis: „Pretty extreme weather today, but nothing we are not used to from the Red Bull Romaniacs ;-). It was a great start for me and I hope that the weather will get a bit better the coming days for the riding fun, which is part of why I am here. But I also hope that it stays extreme one way or the other, since I prefer the race to be as extreme as possible. I appreciate the great support from Husaberg, GoldenTyre and Adventure-Spec and am looking forward to the race.
Chris Birch: „I loved the prologue and for the race I am not thinking so much about the competition, but more about the surprises Martin „Frejn” has prepared for us in the mountains. And now that it has started raining, it feels very much more like at home in New Zealand and gives me an additional edge ;-)”
Paul Bolton: „I am stoked to be on the podium, which gives me a great starting position for this great race tomorrow.”
Letti: „Racing always involves a bit of luck and I was certainly lucky at the beginning, fell in the semi-finals and could therefore only participate in the 2nd-finals, where I had a great run. And the weather was perfect, I certainly prefer slippery and wet conditions and hope it will continue to rain a bit when the „real thing” starts tomorrow.” He finished 9th.
Martin „Frejn”: I am very pleased with the event today, the Live-HD-Video cast has been a huge additional burden and challenge for us organizers – but it was certainly worth it: thousands offans followed the Prologue live and celebrated the Enduro-sport with the riders. We are extremely happy that we did not have any injuries and wish all riders loads of fun and good luck for the race starting tomorrow.
Results:
PRO Class
Graham Jarvis ENG 2
Paul Bolton GBR 4
Chris Birch NZL 1
Trial Class
1 Philipp Scholz GER 52
2 Stefan Zwerenz GER 51
Expert Single Class
1 Gavin Johnston Gavin SCO 108
2 Shane Moss AUS 129
3 Pascal Berlingieri BEL 106
Expert Team Class
1 Enrico Maria Garavelli ITA 207
2 Schrock Stefan ITA 208
3 Daniel Conopan ROU 201
Hobby Single Class:
1 Andreas Paragios GRE 345
2 Ernst Hostettler CH 320
3 Jason Ecclestone AUS 313
Hobby Team Class
1 Riho Kollist EST 407
2 Krisztian Nagy ROU 445
3 Robbie Head SCO 426
