"It's gunna be wetter than an otter's pocket, but I @#$@ love a good pond session."
(#918 Halen Wickert is the Gentleman of W.A. Hard Enduro)
I really wasn't going to bore you all with a prelude, but I just can't help myself. I mean really, how can I not?
I can't sit in front of a computer and pretend to do my normal job when the curtains are just about to be peeled back on what is sure to be the greatest show on earth!
YES...FINALLY......it's the start of the WHES 2024 racing season! A double header at Mildwood and MounTurner.
And the track builders aren't just building new tracks out there; they are REBUILDING old tracks that the savagery of our winter onslaught just recently annihilated.
It's going to be manic!
Mildwood is a super enduro/enduro cross track and MounTurner is one of the most hectic back country circuits on the calendar.
These races are back-to-back if you can believe that - Saturday and Sunday. And it is all happening within 2 hours of Perth, Western Australia, just shy of Bunbury and just west of Collie, 6.6km up Coalfields Road. (Click the link).
This year so many riders have elevated categories - Bronze to Silver and Silver to Gold. There are Juniors and there's now a Womens category. Every objective that the WHES committee had for the '24 season has been met for the inaugural event!!
Peter "the Man Mountain" and Halen "the Perfect Gentleman" Wickert are stepping up to Gold, while the "Lab Rat" Luke Abbott has been pushing tin to keep them back in his filth. Harris Baxter Green and bunch of others are rising through the quagmire from Bronze to Silver, and there are more new riders than you can wrap a mousse around.
Rieju Racer Sam Rogers , the 2023 Champion, is now a W.A. lad and, having had such a massive year last year, he is more ready than ever to tear up the hills that are his new home.
Ready for Mildwood, but keen as for MounTurner, Sam's prep has been incessant in the hills around Perth. He's also been racing the local enduro rounds while waiting for the WHES season to kick off.
It's a near certainty that Rogers won't spend a great deal of time looking over his shoulder, but if he does, he says he'll be scoping the horizon for the likes of Petrig and Abbott.
Jakob Petrig is on a new bike, with a new sponsor but he has that same insatiable appetite for podium placings that he has always had. Make no mistake; there are going to be a lot of eyes on J Bob and he will give everything he's got to get on the top step.
I have to say, it is damn hard to get down in words how much of a mixed bag this weekend is going to be.
But the two races, the two formats (motos at Mildwood and timed enduro at MounTurner), the two new categories and the ton of rider class changes projects permutations of unpredictability that are too prolific to preferentialise.
Just to yourself a solid and get down there to get amongst it.
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