Piketberg Enduro Saturday 7th March '09

How much for official fan club members OOh Geoff - your lovely bike and such skill.. No just kidding - all the best in the race

Some feed back on this Enduro. Chris Hamman please add some of your groups trials and tribulations!!!!!! I stripped the splines on my gearstick about 2kms into the race after a good start. Made my way back to the pits and they did a great job (thanks Wayne) replacing the gear stick. By the time I left the pits again the first guys had already completed their first lap....................I went out again pushing hard and fell twice (stupid falls, no damage except to ego) within a few hundred meters of each other. Had this feeling that it was a bad omen so retired from the race. It was hellishly hot and the wind & dust..............!!!!!! Atlantic Motorrads top guy (Gary Sox Smith) hit a quad bike in the dust injuring himself (knee) and his bike quite badly. Kobus Potgeiter (also from AM) suffered from extreme nauseousness in the heat forcing him to retire as well. Eddie Sullivan & Charles Ackerman (Atlantic Motorrad) did well (I believe) but both had minor tumbles. Ruan de Lange did not ride. Russell Rathbone's handle bars came loose leaving him with a pair of handle bars in his hands not attached to his bike at around 80kph. Yes you can imagine he had a bad fall but he is fine. Paul Blignaut another Club member did very well after crashing out of the first off road ride (St Helena) earlier in the year. The Hamman guys fared much better and hopefully Chris will add some of their happening's to this thread. All in all a very tough day. PS : I also learnt the hard way that it is very easy to "over" hydrate yourself. In the heat I drank far to much liquids prior to the race starting. On the start line already I had this incredible bloated feeling. This was not helped at all by all the bouncing on the track. When I retired my stomach was really painful and I was very happy to be able to stop. Geoff.

Glad you guys all made it safely - Russ - lucky man - did not even mention to me on the phone earlier (these guys are tough)so must be feeling a lot better today

Eish, not a good day. Would like to join you guys for the next round however still need to work out how to register etc etc and most important work on my fitness!

Chris will write something, or maybe I will just let some guys write some of their own feedback and let you have it..... Clint aka Grim wrote the following... Hamman Racing

More photos of Piketberg Offroad at http://picasaweb.google.com/tehJok3r/MeintjieskraalPiketbergRaceMar2009# I started tired. The last three weeks was just to tiring ad after LAP 2 I decided to sit down and relax. I relaxed for 40 minutes. Then set of to finish 4 LAPS. Very disapointed as 6 laps should have been the norm. Race was well organised and the track was nice for an offoad event. The only complaint was that the marking was a bit dificult to follow. So imagine traveling on soe offroad sandy rutted track at 80km/h and then getting passed by somebody to find out you cannt see past your handlebar. Scary moments!!! The racing scene has many surprises but we love every minute of it, no matter what we look like on photos ;)

Another person's view can be seen here: http://www.hammanracing.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&... He is new to racing as well, but rides an Adventure.