ECEA Round 2: Sandy Lane Enduro

Race Report: ECEA Round 2: Sandy Lane Enduro

WER Rider: Zack Huberty

Bike: KTM 200 XC

Result: A-200 5^th

Report:

            Since my last race report, I have been working hard on dialing in our new race bike and continuing to strengthen my cardio.  After the first enduro, I cleaned up the bike, greased all of the parts, tightened bolts, and then got to work on making some changes.  I softened up my forks a little because they still seemed a little stiff in the whoops.  I also adjusted the carb because it was running rich and the idle was not high enough in the tight stuff.  The week after the first enduro was spent running daily and playing basketball at night.  I was just not in the shape I should have been at the first race.  Going into the second race, my goal was to have a good ride and slowly chip away at the big difference between my score and the leaders (which was a difference of 17 points). 

After the first enduro, I talked to Drew Smith about my ride.  His advice was for me to not worry necessarily about getting first place at the moment, but to slowly chip away at the difference between the leader and myself.  I have to be realistic and remember that I cannot make huge leaps in just one race.  I need to slowly get my speed up and learn how to smooth out my riding style.  Too many times do I see young riders enter the A class and then ride over their head.  Many of these riders end up beating himself or herself up, or even getting seriously injured.  Going into Round two, I focused on these things and I hoped to show some improvements.

            The second round of the ECEA enduro series brought us to central New Jersey near the Wharton State Forest.  The weather forecast looked good and it was not too cold out.  I came home from Penn State on Friday and washed all of our bikes and gear.  On Saturday, I spent the day making sure everything was ready and that each bike was fully looked over.  Then on Sunday morning, we left at 5:30 AM to head to New Jersey.  I rode on row 20 with fellow double AA rider Dan Stoppi Jr.  The morning started out fairly easy and allowed me to warm-up.  I zeroed the first three checks of the day.  I was feeling pretty good and my body felt a lot stronger.  The fourth check was a checkout in a fairly flowing but tight section.  I found this section to be extremely hard to find a rhythm.  It would open up so I could flow but then the trail would come to a corner with a few tight trees.  In this section, I was able to drop a 6 which was similar to the other riders in my class although one dropped a 5.  The next section of the day was broken into two checks, which can separate out the competition pretty easily because the time you lose is compounded.  In this section, I lost the most time to the leaders.  The trail was super tight and I could not find a rhythm.  I have never been really good at tight riding, but that will have to be something that I work on this year.  After this, we went to a pretty big reset and then went back out to a tight section.  In this tight section, I lost a good 2-3 minutes to the leaders in my class.  I just could not flow like I wanted to.  I felt uncomfortable and choppy in these sections.  A lot of these tight sections have to do with using every bit of the trail to create wider turning so that you can maintain momentum.

            After the tight sections, the day ended with a fun wide-open section that I had ridden the year before.  Last year, this section was full of mud holes and some tight spots, but this year it flowed really well and I was able to ride well.  Unfortunately, I just barely missed the flip for this section and ended up with a 4.  The rest of the people in my class ended up with 4s except for one who dropped a 3.  At the end of the day, I felt accomplished in a way because I had put in a pretty good ride.  My bike was working great and it pulled strong in every section.  However, coming away from this enduro, I have realized that I need to improve my technical riding in the tight sections.  I am happy that my bike worked great and I would like to comment on one of my sponsors which is AP Brakes.  One of the keys to that tight race was braking power and the AP sintered brake pads provided me with consistent braking throughout the race while some riders struggled with squeaky brakes.  It has been a busy month as we head next week to New Jersey again for round 3 of the ECEA Enduro series.

            I could not have done all of this without the support of my family, especially my dad for his race support, as well as my sponsors which are Johnny Limp at Torc1Racing, Drew Smith at WER Suspension, PowerSeal USA, FMF, BRP, EKS Brand Goggles, P3, All Balls Racing, Galfer USA, Sixsixone, Kenda, N-Style, Vertex Pistons, AXO, DT-1 Filters, AP Brakes, Motorex, Acerbis, Matto Cycle, MotoConcepts, Renthal, Clockwork KTM, and Topar Racing.

For more information:

Check WER Suspension out at Facebook “Works Enduro Rider (WER)”

Check Zack Huberty out at Facebook “Zack’s Racing”