Erzberg 2010 - Chris Dustow Race Report
On Monday morning Chris and the lads returned from their week long adventure to the Red Bull Hare Scramble / Erzberg Rodeo. Chris had set himself the big challenge of a top 50 finish in his first ever attempt at riding the event and we are chuffed to be able to say he came home with an impressive 48th place.
This was a massive achievement for Chris considering it was his first ever attempt and a few things didn’t quite go his way leading up to the event. Chris qualified in 181st which saw him on the 4th row of the grid, which was good, but Chris felt he could have gone 1 or 2 rows better if things went a little more in his favour.
First of all, due to none of the lads understanding German, Chris missed a fairly important guide/tour of the Prolog course. This is the course that the riders ride twice with their best time counting towards their qualification position. This wasn’t the end of the world as Chris has cycled the course the day before and knew what to expect, but it would still have been an advantage to go on the tour and maybe see a couple of different lines and see how the conditions were changing with the dramatic weather conditions.
Then during Chris’ first qualifying run Chris has the misfortune of his tire coming off the rim. He was looking completely tapped out and said his run was going very well up until this point. So Chris didn’t have the comfort of a qualification time going into the second day of qualifying, nor had he actually ridden half of the top part of the track unlike most of the other 1,800 riders.
Without making any excuses and knowing he had to make his second run count, Chris rode well under pressure and managed to come in at 181st position, which was on the 4th row of the starting grid. We were all pleased with this but at the same time Chris felt his first run was going faster as he had to shut off a few times during his second run due to dust and not being able to see anything. If he had ridden the track the whole way the first time he wouldn’t have had to ease off like this if he knew what was ahead. Like we said though, no excuses.
The next day saw blistering heat hit Eisenerz. Each row was set off with a 2 minute gap between each, so before he had even let the bike have it, he was 6 minutes behind the first 50 riders. Chris spent the rest of the day tackling what he says was the hardest, most technical and physically demanding terrain he has ever ridden. He worked his ass off right through and with the help of the team managed to make it to the infamous checkpoint, Carl’s Diner in one piece, albeit exhausted and dehydrated.
It was in Carl’s Diner where Chris shone and showed his typical character and grit and this is also where all his hard work and training paid off. Chris pretty much pushed himself into the top 50 by passing 4 or 5 riders who were all but beaten by the challenge that is the Erzberg Rodeo. The whole team were giving Chris massive support and encouragement to help him through what has to be one of the craziest stretches you would ever want to put a motorbike through! When you see grown men close to tears, collapsed against their bikes you realised just how much this event takes to ride.
After this, Chris made his way to a couple more checkpoints before running out of time and finishing the day in 48th position. The whole team were chuffed for Chris and overwhelmed by what they had seen throughout the course of the day.
Chris will be posting his own thoughts and views on the week here over the next week so make sure you stay tuned.
