EP#59 - AEC Round 7/8 Wrap with Lyndon Snodgrass and Jeff Briggs

ADB's Mitch Lees and co-host Jeff Briggs talk all the things that went on behind the scenes at Rounds 7 and 8 of the Australian Enduro Championship (AEC) at Casterton, Vic and catch up with ring-in Lyndon Snodgrass who's back from racing in the US. Snoddy talks Casterton and Hattah and what's in store coming up for him. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:00

Welcome to the ADB podcast, where we talk all things dirt with your host, Mitch Lee. Alright, guys, we are back finally. I apologize. It's been a month since we have jumped on the podcast last. That's entirely my fault. We were off uh covering the Fink Desert race and we spent a few weeks getting out there. And um yeah, we we kind of were out there for uh two of the ProMX rounds. Fortunately, we haven't missed an AEC round, which is what we're wrapping up here in Castiden, but we missed the ProMex. So for those out there that were expecting to see a ProMX wrap, we missed pretty much the two in the middle there. We'll catch up with them when we do the next round. I think we've got two more rounds of ProMex left, so we'll catch up with them next time. So, but for now, we are gonna talk about the latest round at Castiden uh of the AEC Championship. Before we do, I'm just gonna thank our sponsor, and that is Dunlop. They're sponsoring the show with the AT82 tire. It's a multi-directional tyre, so depending on the terrain, you can flip it around. If you're riding the sandy conditions that the guys got out at Castadon this weekend, you can turn the tyre around to get more traction on one side of the knob. And if you're riding hard pack stuff, you can flip the tie around and get more traction on the other side of the knob. So it's pretty cool. The uh my co-host who's about to jump on with us now, Jeff Briggs, is running the tyre and has been running the tyre at multiple rounds racing, so he's putting it through the best tests you could possibly can. Trail riding, racing it, motocrossing it, everything, and uh he's got a pretty good feel for it. But hey, without further ado, Briggsy, thanks for coming on the pod, mate. Sorry, it's been a month since we kind of last did one of these.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

That's alright. Yeah, happy to be back.

SPEAKER_04 1:28

You got back 15 minutes ago, I believe. It's 2.04 pm on Monday, and you guys drove all the way home and you got in like 15 minutes ago.

SPEAKER_01 1:37

Yeah, still got to wash bikes and wash the car and tidy up, but yeah, we'll get there.

SPEAKER_04 1:41

Oh mate, well, thanks for coming on. This is the best feedback because it's fresh. It's fresh in your mind. You're um, you know, could you get yourself out of the car? Were you cramped up and was it a hard drive slog home?

SPEAKER_01 1:52

Uh no, not too bad. I'm sore in a few spots just from uh the big whoops and all that sort of stuff, and swinging off the back of the bike that I probably wouldn't normally be as sore in the intensity, but no, I feel alright. Yeah, we stopped a few times, had a stretch, stayed overnight for six hours in Aubrey, got up and drove again. So we broke it up, it was pretty good.

SPEAKER_04 2:10

Nice. Um and we're gonna have later on uh Lyndon Snoggrass, who made a guest appearance uh in Australia for this round of the AEC, and he's actually also going to be racing Hatter, I think we can say that. Um the KDM guys gave us a bit of a heads up last week that he's over here. He's gonna do a round of AEC and then he's gonna race Hatter as well. I think there'll be a bigger announcement for Hatter. So uh Lindo will join us probably in about 25 minutes, uh, and we're gonna just kind of have a brief chat with him and then we're gonna go into Briggsy and I are gonna get uh Lindo back on the podcast in the next few weeks to give us a good rundown of life for him and what it's looked like for the last five years, especially since he headed over to the US, um, but more importantly, more about his career. But we're gonna focus today with Lindo when he gets on about what he's doing here. Um, but Briggsy Castadin. Now we expected sand. It looked sandy, but it got wet. So I'm assuming the sand factor wasn't as like pivotal, dry, deep sand.

SPEAKER_01 3:07

Uh yeah, it still was like 90% of the track was sand, but 10% had some fairly muddy conditions. And I wouldn't say they were that bad to start with, but it just seemed to as the juniors rode it more and more, the water came up through the days and uh through the day, and it just got to a point where it was it started getting real bad bog holes, and uh the cross country they changed the track a little bit for the seniors. The poor juniors are out there, there was a few bikes, blew up. Yeah, young Arch Archie Vanos, I think his bike blew up and he had to go back to a practice bike, so he DNF'd and the poor bugger, and there's a lot of that going on. And I I kind of felt sorry for the juniors because they got thrown in the deep end a little bit. We we got the luck of the draw where it was just like probably gonna be a bit too gnarly with 200 and I think 61. I think we had in seniors that's cool bikes going through some of them holes, it would have been yeah, disastrous. Uh but yeah, it was it was a great event. I mean, it's different, I'll give you that. Like it's really hard. The thing I found hard was with the corners, the bracken fern's so high, and you kind of sunk down in the track a little bit that you can't see through the corners.

SPEAKER_04 4:21

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 4:22

So a lot of the time you're really blind. You you kind of don't know where the track goes, and you're trying to get a feel for it. You can't see through the corner and look at what's ahead and whether it's a straight or like sometimes you'll be tipping in halfway around a corner, and then all of a sudden it'll sharpen up. And other corners they'll just keep going around. You're kind of ready just for it to sharpen up, and it doesn't. So until you find your way and know a little bit of where you're going, it is it all does look very similar and kind of the same, but that was one part of it that was pretty cool too.

SPEAKER_04 4:50

So and cross country on the Saturday, sprints on the Sunday. Um how long was the cross-country lap?

SPEAKER_01 4:56

Uh, for the top guys are about 35 minutes, 33 roughly, maybe even quicker. I'm not sure on the exact times. And then for us, I think my best one was a 45, but it just varies. I mean, we started behind the women. I caught the women, we caught the women pretty quick, the slower women. Uh, and I was way too polite. I didn't want to punt any of them, or I sat behind them for kilometres, and and that's just part of it. Like, that's something that I need to be better at. A lot of the other guys got past them pretty quick, so no excuses there. I just was too polite. Uh, but yeah, and I think overall my total time for the three laps was like two hours 20. The faster guys were 10 minutes in front of me in my class. Um, yeah, so it was it was challenging. I mean, it got really rough after the cross country, but the bog holes, the the muddy bog holes. My first lap, I was just going down this straight, and there was three lines, and I seen a a girl picking her bike up. I'm like, oh, what's going on here? And then next thing I'm on the ground, I just went over the bars. Uh, but that was the only one part, like, and then a lot of other parts were pretty good. So yeah.

SPEAKER_04 6:02

And and did it rain on the day, or all rain in the lead up, and then nothing on the Saturday, Sunday.

SPEAKER_01 6:07

A lot in the lead up, a little bit on the Friday, Friday overnight. We got some drizzle on the Saturday on and off all day, but just being so cold, not much sun this time of year, it was never gonna dry. I think they had a pretty good chunk of rain the last two weeks down there. Yeah, um, the sand was amazing, like perfect conditions. The moisture just kept coming up, and it was not a speck of dust all weekend. It was just these there was five, six big bog holes that just were part of the challenge. Like, I once I got like the my first sprint lap, I got bogged and had to pull my bike, get off my bike, and lift it out. Yeah, but once once you figured out the lines and all that, I actually enjoyed it. Like it was just another part of the track, right? But uh, it's just challenging, but everyone was on the same track, it was great, you know. I really enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_04 6:54

Um, you're on the uh Shirko 300 SEF factory, the long-term test bike we've got for ADB. How did it how'd it hold up, mate? Because, like you said, if it's boggy, sandy, wet, that's gonna sap every CC you got out of the bike. Feel alright, mate.

SPEAKER_01 7:07

This little Shirko has surprised me. I said to Matt Um Riley from Shirko Australia, I've I've chucked a sand tie on and went and rode some pretty deep sand. And thinking being only a 300cc, I was gonna be lacking a little bit of bottom and mid. And it's it's blown my expectation out of the water. I'm I'm quite impressed with it, to be honest. It's been a great little bike. The only mishap I did have over the weekend, I stalled it in a test and the start button wouldn't go. I lost like 30 seconds, and I ended up finding like a loose connection. Just the plug had come apart behind the headlight, whether it just vibrated from all the whoops and bouncing and all that and the riding lately. So I ended up just giving that a bit of a clean move, some contact clean to put it back together. That's been a dream since uh that was the only thing, but yeah, nothing major, so it hasn't missed a bean, honestly.

SPEAKER_04 7:54

That's good, that's impressive. Um, all right. Well, let's just talk about the uh each class. We're gonna go through like we do normally do each class and uh what you kind of saw, what the vibe was on the day, who looked fast. I mean, uh there was some footage floating around of Will Rupert having a big crash. You actually sent it through to me as a message as well before I saw it up on online. And um, looks like the the mud and everything kind of caught him out a little bit as well.

SPEAKER_01 8:19

Yeah, that was more the sprints on the second day when uh they were probably going pretty hard because they're only a four-minute test loop. But on the cross country, we're probably better off starting on the Saturday, yeah. Um and looking at results, and Will got the outright, which credit to him. His sand was his weakness the last few years. And Corey, in my eyes, was the favourite. He won Hadda last year, he's won a lot of these cross countries. And I spoke to Corey, and and he actually they passed me on the third lap, my third lap towards the sort of three-quarter mark, two-thirds of the lap. And I could hear Corey Allen and and he went side by side over a log, and then we went over second log, and then I kind of moved over, let him pass. And I'm thinking, oh, here we go, someone's gonna come past. And next I look back, and Will was still, I reckon 15-20 seconds back still.

SPEAKER_02 9:08

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:09

And then, but then Corey said to me after, he goes, Man, I don't know where he came from, but he made up a lot of time quick on me. So we'll Will had probably uh Corey had a fair chunk of gap by the third lap. I think Will had lost derailed his chain, so that was part of the drama. They're having to do a two-stop for fuel with the Yamaha. Somehow he's got his chain back on, they've done a second stop, and Will's put in a charge at the end, and he's been doing a lot of sand work, uh, from what I he's told me and what we spoke about just briefly over the weekend, and yeah, he he made it count when it had to, and you know, and I I was I was got to congratulate Snotty too. He got yeah third third in XC. Yeah, um, but a big shout out to Joy Dixon too, the poor bugger. Looks like he may have ruptured his ACL, just stabbed his knee uh on the third lap, I think he said. Because I I was expecting all these guys to come through with um Corey and Will, right? Like I thought I was gonna get freight trained by six, seven, eight, nine of them. It was sort of Corey and Will had broken away. Uh, and then Snoddy was bringing up the rear, but he was still he must have been a couple of minutes.

SPEAKER_04 10:19

Three minutes, three minutes, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:21

Yeah, so and then he passed me, and I was expecting just to have one after the other after the other, but then I didn't get passed again before I finished my lap, so I was pretty happy with that.

SPEAKER_04 10:30

Yeah, yeah. Because they were the because Will and Corey were only 24 seconds apart after the cross court. That's that's epic. And so you say you're saying Will came through in the last lap and made the pass on Corey.

SPEAKER_01 10:43

Well, so what happened? I think they passed each other twice. So Corey said that he passed Will back, and then there was like a chicken run, and he went to go and just overshot it. Like, not the chicken run, he was obviously going the hard line, but there's a log that turned, and he said he just came in a bit hot and laid it down, and then Will got past. And by the time he got back up, Will had checked out, obviously, because he was on it. Like, to be honest, Will really surprised me. Like, we all know he's probably that top five, ten uh in juro rider in the world at the moment, he's impressive, yeah. But Sand was where he kind of lost it last year. He got, I think he had a fifth and a sixth last year, and being so tight with Milner, you can't throw that away. So for him to come back, work on his weakness, and we actually spoke about his weakness. I won't tell anyone, it's not for me to repeat, but it was impressive to see him put that into work and just methodically use it, right? And and improve that much in 12 months. So yeah, I've got to give him credit. But Corey was writing amazing too, and that them boys had really pushed each other away from the pack. So it was similar to Will and and Daniel last year, Milner, when they they also battled hard to break away from the group a lot of the time in a lot of stuff as well.

SPEAKER_04 11:56

So yeah, um, so yeah, we'll won day one, uh, followed by Corey, then Lindo, then Kogan Locke. So you kind of had a freight train of the bigger bikes um coming through there. Obviously, the only big one is Corey on in the E3 class, but yeah, um 450s. Then there's just like a run of 250s, just like so Coop, Shido, Max Purvis, Jeremy Carpenter. I just would have thought the little bikes in those conditions you wouldn't even be in the top 10.

SPEAKER_01 12:23

It's quite it's quite tight. Uh it's so you you do the 450 would benefit in certain sections, but at the same time, you didn't lose a lot in certain sections on the 250. Okay, and it's a firmer sand than like a beach sand, so it actually gets some decent ruts and whoops, but it's it moves around like sand, but it still has a firmness to it that's hard to describe. It's yeah, and with the moisture in it, that made it even a bit firmer, I think. Uh, which probably benefited the 250s a lot, but you weren't really at a disadvantage, I guess, especially being a lighter, smaller guy on a 250. Yeah, okay. But yeah, you would have you would have like if you got on the back straight along the fence line, then Corey and Will probably would have come past you like you're standing still, being a probably a three, four hundred meter dead straight run. But yeah, during through all the corners and all that, them guys can ride that quick and and efficiently that they make a 250 work really well.

SPEAKER_04 13:22

Um, conditions-wise, for all these guys and yourself, uh, when we think of Caston and we think of those sand rounds, we think like your back is cooked after day one because you're just standing in the whole time and trying to hit all these big rollers and whoops, and your hands fall apart because you get sand in your gloves and your blisters pop up. Yeah, so you've got some you show me for those that can't.

SPEAKER_01 13:40

No, no, no blisters.

SPEAKER_04 13:41

No, not bad. Okay. Brigley was just showing me his hand on the screen there, and it I couldn't see just the calluses, no blisters.

SPEAKER_01 13:46

Um, Maddie Simpson had some decent blisters. Some good ones, massive ones, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 13:52

Especially when it's wet too. Like the gloves are wet, the the sand's in there.

SPEAKER_01 13:57

Yeah, I I didn't find it too bad. I mean, obviously, I'm not going to pace them guys to go on, but they they know what's coming up, they condition themselves to that type of riding. I'm sure they're out doing some 40-50 minute motors and some testing and getting used to it. And some of them run different grips and and whatnot. Uh, there's a lot of them had steggies on, steering dampeners, the bigger fuel tanks, and it's also a bit of a prep for Hatter, which is kind of interesting because that's kind of thrown that race wide open with with Will doing so well. I still think Corey may have the upper hand there, but it's going to be a great race now. I'm really looking forward to seeing who wins that. But yeah, as a just with the cross country, you just end up pacing yourself. It's not flat out. I mean, them guys ride pretty hard, but I after speaking to them the first lap, they were like at 85%. They said they were just trail riding it, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 14:48

Right.

SPEAKER_01 14:48

Just feeling their way out because you just don't know where it goes because the bracken fern is so high, you can't see through the corners. And Joe and Corey just said under the tent, they were just like, Yeah, I was just trail riding, we were going pretty slow. I'm like, really? And then I'm like, Yeah, yeah, they're slow as like my sprint time. So yeah, uh, but yeah, they I think they just ride at a pace they're comfortable at. They know it's a three-hour race, and then once they get a bit of comfort going and they warm up and get into it, I think that's when they start to find their groove and push.

SPEAKER_04 15:19

Uh could you three hours and roughly 30-minute lap times, 45-minute lap times, could you start to pick the track up by the end of it? Were you starting to remember which corner, or is it so so similar? Every corner looks the same.

SPEAKER_01 15:32

No, you knew where to go, but the biggest thing I found was you could lose a lot of time in the mud holes. So if you there was just some spots because the mud itself, where the track was was quite firm underneath. But everyone, including myself, because I was just unsure of how deep the mud was, we kept going wider and wider into the grass, and the grass was actually softer than the the bog holes. So on the Sunday, I figured that out, and I was a straight line in the bog holes, and they weren't that bad, like they had a hard base where the water was sitting. But the first sprint where I got bogged, I went off in the grass and just sunk down my the my whole front wheel was under grass. So I had to get off the bike and I lost about 40 seconds in that test. But I think that happened too in the in the cross country. So when Corey passed me, there was this one section, and I think you might have seen Amy Granquist, uh Amy Rupert, like whiskey for the bike up that tree route. There are heaps of people getting stuck on this tree route, and there's a uh hard line to the left, but it had like these two logs. One was about knee to waist height, and then another log after it, but it cupped out that much from just being wet. There was six or seven people in that, and then I'll go to the right, and there's six or seven people on that other tree route. So then we kind of went out and around, and then after that, there was two or three big bog holes that you kind of went down into knee-deep mud, then up the bank, and then the same again. And I got through the second one and shot out, and then that's when I could hear someone behind me, and it was Corey, and I turned and he was just coming up the rise, and then there was two logs after that. But them bog holes, if you for them guys too, going the speed they're going, if they were to get caught behind a pack, Corey could probably lose 10-15 seconds, and then if everyone clears out and Will gets a clean run, he's probably gained 10 or 15 seconds. So them little things like that can be a real big difference in that race type. Yeah, whereas with sprints, it's just whoever's fastest on the day. So cross country has a few things to play. It's also them guys that like when I see them, I just move, but and even if someone else that's in my class catches me, I kind of give them the benefit and let them go. But mate, some people were reluctant to move, and they would have been. Corey said to me, he goes, It was pretty frustrating at times because the track was quite narrow and you couldn't see ahead, it was hard to pass.

SPEAKER_04 17:52

Yeah, so did did did they consider with all the rain coming, changing the format? Is cross country still would have been the best format? Spread them out longer track than sprinting both days.

SPEAKER_01 18:03

Uh I'm not sure. I I don't know. I don't know if it would have benefited either. I mean, they got it's 25 K's of sand with just a little bit of mud. Yeah, they probably and it was hard because they had to, and that would have been the best thing if we didn't get quite the rain. The grass track section would have been a really good section to pass and make them them passes before you got back into the tight stuff, right? Yeah, and there was still a few sections, and look, there's other people who are better than me because I I obviously got stuck behind while the guys who were in front of me in my class took off, so yeah, I just need to work on that myself. But I didn't think I thought the cross country was a great format. They changed the start for seniors, made it a bit tighter, and we didn't go through the mud. I think that would have been dangerous with 40, 450s going into a first corner flat out. The kids probably got the raw end of the deal, to be honest. I felt pretty bad for them, and we probably they maybe could have changed it earlier, but it's hard. They're trying to just run the best event they can with what they got. And credit to Vic Offroads, it was a good event, like you know, they really run it well. But I don't think the format I think we need the cross country, we need to have it. It's a great event, and it was run really well for what it was, it was just hard, but yeah, yeah. You can't you can't change conditions, really, right? So and we're all in the same boat, and yeah, yeah, everyone's on the same track.

SPEAKER_04 19:27

Um, hey, before he gets on, Snotty. Uh kind of surprised everyone turning up. Like I said, KDM gave us a heads up about a week ago, said, Oh, look, he's coming down here, they're not gonna make a big show and dance about it for um uh AEC. He will pet out of the DM31. That's Daniel Mill and his team out of his truck, but there will be a bigger uh press release, etc., coming out for his Hatter stint. Did you I mean like coming from GNCC's, I was thinking, oh, it's gonna be wet too. This could be right up Snotty's alley because it's gonna be a wet um GNCC style event. But I know we're gonna get to it a little very briefly with him when he jumps on in five minutes, but I know this year's been a bit up and down for him with uh riding, you know, he was on a Ducadie a little bit earlier, then he kind of was bouncing around on a KDM only a few weeks ago, so he hasn't had that stable base to be building something with a KDM. So I maybe that could have come into it, but he was three minutes behind Will and Corey, and then behind him was Kogan Locke, who was another two minutes. This is for the overall. Um did you think Snotty would be closer, or did you go, you know what, he's been here for a week or so? Like the came out.

SPEAKER_01 20:35

Yeah, and like I knew I I think the third's respectable either way, yeah, to be honest, to come back from America, jump straight on KDM. And I know he's look what I expect out of Snotty is exactly what he got. Like he's a podium guy, he's proven that before. He's been teammates with Milner before, they get along really well. It was always gonna work, and when I seen that he was right racing, I was like, oh, he'll do well. Like he's gonna be one of the top runners, top top five at minimum, in my opinion. Yeah, especially coming from that GNCC time where they race for the four-hour nationals and the three hours and all that. So it's right up his alley. In a sense, the biggest thing is getting back on a bike that's unfamiliar, but yeah, I'm pretty sure he can jump on Milner's setup, but it'll be similar to what he's raced previously with KDM and know that it's gonna be a decent setup, it's not gonna be too far off what he probably would like anyway. And he's such a talented rider that yeah, I'd I'd put him there and with the experience he's got now from racing them cross-country style races. Yeah, I think he he did what he was supposed to do. And I think the only one who probably would have got between them would have been Jay had he not heard hurt his knee, you know. Yeah, and and which sort of leads me to the question whether Snotty gets a bit of a feeling ride for the rest of the year in Jai's if he's injured, you know. Yeah. So I mean he raced Sunday, and from all accounts. When I seen him on the Saturday afternoon, he was he wasn't in a great deal of pain, but he was in discomfort.

SPEAKER_04 22:06

So yeah. That's a shame. Jai's a good mut mate of the mag. Briggsie went around and picked up his bike the other day for us so we could go ride it. And um the bike was so impressive. He just got the bike so well set up, and he's a he's keen. He's so he's so he's young, he's keen, and so it's bummer to see this halfway through a season for him.

SPEAKER_01 22:22

Oh, and it's it sucks to see one of our championship contenders out now, you know, between him, Will, and Corey, he was he was right there. So I think a good result with this one would have closed it up a bit and probably put Will on the back foot a little bit going to Kempsey. Uh and I want to see exciting racing. Like I like all three of the guys that were in the championship fight. I don't have any favourites. I think they're all great people, and if we have good good racing, it's better for our series.

SPEAKER_04 22:49

So agreed. Uh fourth outright was Kogan Locke. But he is just impressing this year. He keeps getting better. I probably didn't have him in the top five personally uh out at Caston. I thought maybe more technical rounds would be more up his alley coming from a bit of that hard enduro stuff, but he's ripping.

SPEAKER_01 23:05

Oh, I think I think he's a bit of a stand pig at heart for what it was.

SPEAKER_04 23:09

Yeah, yeah, he was fast. Then then you had Cooper Scheido, who who I expected to do quite well. Coop's been ripping all season. Then uh this is a 250 run, but still fifth outright, and then Max Purvis, finally, maximum. He's uh he's given us a result that we kind of expected probably earlier in the season, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:27

No, not for me. No, I I think he's still learning that 250 in the enduro style. This race I knew would suit him more being a motocrosser and having it if it's going to be a motocross style race in Enduro, this was more it. It was a lot tighter, obviously, but the bumps, the way the track formed up would suit Max a lot more than say a dusty Roma with rocks and all that. Uh so yeah, I definitely had Max doing better here than I did at any other round for the season, and he's still learning. And like AJ said, we can work with speed. He he will he'll be one to watch if he can figure it out, which he is starting to. He's like, I mean, he won the Sunday in sprints and he won, I'm pretty sure. So he's gonna be yeah, he's gonna be one to beat, especially Canalplin. Kempsey might see Cooper get the upper hand again. Yeah, uh, but yeah, he he's good in the stand.

SPEAKER_04 24:23

He is, he's proven that. Um that's perfect timing because uh Snotty, he's about to join us. I'm gonna bring Snotty in now. All right. Snotty, have we got you there, mate?

SPEAKER_00 24:34

Hey, there it is. How are you? How are you guys going?

SPEAKER_04 24:39

Good, pretty good, mate. It's good to hear you haven't lost the Australian accent, mate. It's been a long time since we've kind of been back here racing. Like, I mean, I know you've done the uh hatters and bits and pieces, but 2020 was the last time we saw you here racing uh AOR, so you pretty much back then.

SPEAKER_00 24:53

Um actually 2019. So 19, yeah. Sorry.

SPEAKER_04 24:59

Mate, so what we we kind of want to we said earlier on the pod, um, and Briggs and I were chatting that we want to catch up with it some days in the next three weeks to talk about life if the over the last five years, because that's an hour and a half or two hour conversation anyway. Um but but we what we want to try and we want to know why you're here, probably now. Like what's happened in the last couple of weeks, what brought you back to Australia, uh, when did you do the deal to um race AEC? And then obviously we want to know, you know, we've heard you're doing Hatter, uh, so we want to know if that's what's going on kind of there. But yeah, so tell us, mate, the decision to come back to Australia to do a little bit of off-roads here, where how'd that all come about?

SPEAKER_00 25:37

Yeah, well, um it sort of started around when the Hatter entries kind of opened, or a little bit before I was thinking, you know, I'd like to come back and have another crack this year. And um, yeah, so got the Hatter entry in and um, yeah, was kind of just hadn't really planned anything um as far as that. I just got the entry in and I'm like, yep, let's kind of figure it out when when the time comes. And then um, you know, I was originally just gonna borrow a bike um off one of my friends, Hunter Semmons, and um and then yeah, it kind of came about was uh Milner had kind of organized a bike for uh for Mason um to come back and do it, and he ended up having some other commitments come up. So um, you know, he asked me, like, hey, you want to ride the bike? I said, Hell yeah, let's go.

SPEAKER_04 26:20

Yeah. So that was for Hatter, but the and he had the bike spare for this weekend. Obviously, we we're only two weeks out from Hatter now.

SPEAKER_00 26:26

So you is it's yeah, well, I was also planning on uh when I this is when I looked at the dates kind of thing, I was like, I could probably hit the Oz in Duro two weeks before it would be a good little warm up race and um and everything like that. So then I I told him I was planning on doing that as well, and he said, Yeah, let's let's do it. So it worked out really well.

SPEAKER_04 26:43

Cool. Um now, like I said, we kind of want to know everything that's happened in the last especially five or six years since you've been in the US. I mean, you're on a Ducaddy six months ago, that kind of stuff. But we're gonna we're gonna park that for now because it's just too long a conversation to have for the AEC rap. We want to talk to you about AEC stuff. Um, like you said, 2019 was the last off-roads series, you waste the whole championship back in 2019. This is now the AEC. We heard a name change, and there's been a fair bit change in the last two years with the series. Um, you've just come off the back of Castadon. What's what's your thoughts? Do you think it's improved? Do you think they've improved in certain areas? There's other areas they could improve on. What how does it how does it feel different to 2019?

SPEAKER_00 27:23

You know, it was it was good. It like as a whole, like not a whole lot's changed. It's still a good atmosphere, and um, you know, it's still just a bunch of people getting together and racing dirt bikes. So um, but yeah, you know, like I think there's been some improvements um around just the way it's ran and and seems to be like running pretty smoothly at the moment, so that's cool. And um yeah, you know, we had obviously perfect track uh this weekend to bar a couple of uh little mud holes here and there. Oh, I didn't find them little snotty. That's for sure. But uh, you know, just like kind of the way it all ran and every everything looked um, you know, like it's a step of the right direction for sure. So um it was good to jump back into you know Ozzynduro and um just have a have a great weekend.

SPEAKER_04 28:13

So tell us what your what was your thoughts on Castadan as a round in terms of conditions, but also competition. This is the first time you've been back here racing these guys in Australia. I know you've been over over in Europe doing six days and stuff, but uh this is the first time racing against the boys back here in a while uh in an AEC format. What what's your where where do they how are they going in terms of speed and what are the what was the track conditions like on at Castiden on the weekend for you?

SPEAKER_00 28:37

Yeah, well the the the venue is awesome actually. It's um it it really reminds me of the old uh AORC venue down at like Headley or whatever. It's pretty similar, like has a lot of like wet, low-lying areas and then like you know, a little bit of that sandy stuff as well. So um, yeah, no, it was a really cool venue, and um, yeah, just like racing with uh those guys. Um, you know, obviously Will's been flying, he's been on a tear. Um Corey was able to stop him, obviously, on Sunday. But um, you know, it just like the the speeds there for sure. Those guys are ripping. And uh like for me myself, like I haven't been doing a whole lot of like uh like this year especially, I haven't been doing a whole lot of like racing with like intensity or whatever. Because I I kind of did like the more desert-y stuff uh earlier in the year where I was doing Baja and um the other like American Desert series. It's more like it's like longer duration, but it's you know, it's more chill. So just like getting back into the like, especially in the three hour was like it was super fun. And you know, my intensity was was definitely wasn't quite there, but you know, I was able to kind of make it work and and um you know it it definitely kicked my butt though. Like it was uh it was a shock to the system, but it was good. Like I needed a little a little kick up the butt to to you know get back to where I need to be. So but um the pace was good, it was it was um it was fun racing.

SPEAKER_04 29:59

Briggsy and I said that. We were like, I think I said to Briggs, I reckon he hasn't done as much of this kind of racing this year. Uh and so we were kind of wondering, would he be happy with the results? Was a third outright on Saturday and was a second outright on Sunday? Um and we're like, oh, I do think you'll be happy with that, and uh, and we're kind of trying to work out, yeah, obviously not as much racing this year, but it's good to hear. Do you think you got a little bit more? Is it could have you, if you had another two weeks on the bike or maybe another round under your belt, have you got more?

SPEAKER_00 30:27

For sure, I think like with a little bit more prep or whatever, I I I would have been better off. But you know, I had a week. I literally, you know, I got to Castadon on Thursday, you know, I flew in the Thursday before, so we we basically had a week to prepare, so just did the best I could with it. And um, yeah, you know, like I I just I wasn't stressed about it at all. I just thought, you know, I'm gonna show up, have fun, and and just see where I'm at. And um, you know, I was able to get some cool cool battles going and um, you know, it was fun, like even just battling with Wheel again, you know, like we've we've been battling since like 2011 or 12, you know. So yeah, it's um you know, that was fun and it was just good to to be in the mix and and uh you know just enjoy the whole weekend.

SPEAKER_01 31:10

How um how close was the bike setup to what you normally like, Snotty? When you come in, I I know Milner's pretty switched on with bike setup and used with teammates in the past, so he kind of probably knows what you like, but when you jumped on on Thursday or Friday at Cassidy, were you pretty happy with what you jumped straight onto, or did you change anything?

SPEAKER_00 31:29

Or um, like my first ride, I kind of I guess I tried a little similar setting to what the boys have been running, and like from being in the States, the racing's a whole lot different. Um you kind of run like a stiffer setup over there because you know, quite often the start of the race is you know completely rough straight away. And it's like it's a different style of racing. So for me, I'm like more used to like a more firmer style of uh setup, I would say, like with what I've been doing uh over the last few years. So um, you know, I took a couple of adjustments and um, you know, I ended up running basically basically a stock setting. Um really 450, yeah. So wow. Um, but that's just what I was kind of comfortable with. And I'd I've been riding the um the KTM bike a little bit in California. I did a little bit of like R D with the with the guys in uh at KDM group there in California, so I'm like kind of familiar with it. So I just I would rather like just go with something I know, even if it wasn't 100% rather than you know try something new. Were you on an XC or I was on an SXF.

SPEAKER_01 32:35

SSX, okay. Yeah, cool.

SPEAKER_00 32:36

Yeah, so um no, it was a it was a handful, plenty of power on that thing.

SPEAKER_01 32:41

Yeah, it was a stock setting wouldn't be too bad there on that the motocross.

SPEAKER_00 32:45

It was if it was a little bit more sandy, it would have been like really, really good, I think. It was it was quite choppy. It was kind of caught me by surprise. It had a lot of like hard choppy bumps out there too.

SPEAKER_01 32:54

So it did, didn't it?

SPEAKER_00 32:56

But yeah, like did the best I could and you know, it was all on me out there to I mean I could have rode that bike better for sure. Like if I if I like looking back now, like there's little mistakes and stuff that you know I definitely could have done better, but just yeah, time on the bike and did you have did you have any moments, mate?

SPEAKER_04 33:15

You said you made made some little mistakes yourself. Did you have any moments where you were like, oh dealy, that was close, or was there anything that you saw, or or and and talk about the battle, you got to battle with Will a bit. Um, yeah, any moments and what was battling with Will like? Did you have any moments with Will?

SPEAKER_00 33:28

No, no real like scary moments. A couple of little kick outs here and there, but I think everyone was. The track was like, you know, when you're pushing the pace on a track like that, you know, everyone's kind of getting a little getting a little hairy out there. But um, yeah, so no, it was just good. And like the racing on Sunday in the sprints, like it was a short, short track, like four minutes 30-ish or something. Um and uh yeah, we'll just kind of go on back. Like I was, you know, getting Will on a couple tests, and then he was getting me, and then um, you know, he actually had a big get-off in the last one, and yeah, I was able to just knock enough time off to to get him for the day. But yeah, that's like one mistake, and you know, I was I was right there, so it was good to keep it close and and uh you won one here, right too, didn't you? Yeah, the last test, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So speed's coming back. That's my first ever test win, I would say.

SPEAKER_01 34:19

Oh really? Yeah, I would say. Yeah, well, you've had some pretty tough competitors during your Aussie campaign. So exactly, yeah. There's been there's definitely been some solid riders I've raced over the years, so yeah. Well um, so what looking now towards Hatter, obviously that was a good testing on the weekend. Are you gonna make much changes, a bit of more bike testing the next two weeks, sort of thing? And what are your plans? Just just get as much bike time as you can, I suppose.

SPEAKER_00 34:48

Yeah, for sure. Um, we use the next couple of weeks and and get the bike dialed for HADA and the faster stuff. And um yeah, basically just uh I'll go up to to Hopedon there where the where Milner's boys uh will be training, and yeah, we'll just kind of do some riding and lock in up there and try to get the bike dialed in, and yeah, that's the best we can do. I think the the faster stuff should be a little bit more what I'm doing this year. So kind of looking forward to that. And yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:15

Yeah, Hadar's definitely a lot faster than Castogen. Yeah. And a lot more open. Like, did you find it hard with the ferns to see ahead a lot?

SPEAKER_00 35:24

I was struggling with that, just like not knowing exactly what was coming around the turn, you know, like whether to whether to like lean in and rail it or like to check up a little bit. Yeah, but yeah, that's just like like I said, a little bit rusty with uh that type of track at the moment, but um, you know, that's just how it goes.

SPEAKER_04 35:43

Yeah, Briggsie said that, flying blind a bit with that bracken fern, it's hard to see past. And um, hey, so then tell us last time you left Australia, we you didn't race guys like Kogan Locke, Cooper Shido, Max Purvis, they're all the these young punks that have turned up since you've probably left. I don't think you would have raced any of those three. Um, maybe not even Jy Dixon. He probably wasn't racing seniors maybe in 2019. He was motocross and yeah, um and even Corey McMahon may not have been racing seniors in 2019. 2019's ages ago, mate. It feels like yesterday, it was actually a long time. Um so you probably weren't racing them at that level. Uh what what what's your thoughts on these young guys coming through? Do you think because it it felt a bit like there for a while that you know, um, when you headed overseas, when Will went over to Europe, uh, and we kind of started losing standards left off-roads and started doing rally, we lost um, and Milner went overseas, we lost so many of those. Yeah, Corey Bacon's buggered off. Like, we've just sorry, current, we've lost so many uh of those off-road guys who are kind of in that who would now be in their late 20s, let's say early 30s, maybe mid to late 20s, early 30s, that would be in their prime. And so we kind of got a bit nervous, especially as like punters following the series and as journos that like, oh, we're gonna have this like void of talent, and we've gone from one of the most talented periods ever in Australian off-road racing between like Pricey Milner Sanders, then coming into you guys who just turned up. Um you haven't seen any of these guys, you know. You're back racing all these young kids. Do they have what it takes to be the next Toby Price's Daniel Milner's in Australia or the Lindos over in the and strangies in the US? And what how how are they going, these young guys that you raced on the weekend?

SPEAKER_00 37:27

I think so, yeah. I mean, like the the the guys, the new guys coming up are going really well, uh, for sure. So, you know, it's just it's just a matter of like if they're willing to go take a step and and try something and you know, kind of put in the work to to like get there. But um, you know, yeah, there's definitely a lot of new names. Like I when I was here, Corey was in junior, yeah, I think, and then um, you know, like Jay's come in to off-road sense, and um, like you're saying with Toga and a few of the other younger guys coming up, but um, yeah, like there's there's plenty of talent coming up, and um it's good to see. It's good for the sport. And and you know, Will coming back from Europe and and um you know, full time last year and then this year, and you know, I think it's definitely in a good spot and like all it's gonna take is um yeah, like someone pushing the pace like that, and like like Corey's obviously stepped up, you know, to take um, you know, Will uh off the top step this this past weekend. So, you know I guess you know guys come in and come back and the other guys kind of step up and you know try and try and you know match the the pace, I guess. But um you know, I think I think it's looking pretty good the future for sure.

SPEAKER_04 38:44

Speaking of coming in and coming back, um if Jai is hurt and he maybe can't race the rest of the series, have you got much going on in the US? Or are you hanging around?

SPEAKER_00 38:55

I don't know. I I'm headed back after Hadda, but um Okay. I guess there is there is what two more rounds of the Osenduro? Yeah, we've got Kemsey and then Canalton. Yeah, I mean I really don't have a a whole lot going on, but um, you know, that's a that's a topic for another day, I guess. I haven't even really thought about that at all, but um, you know I I mean I had a I had a lot of fun like uh at the Osenduro, so I wouldn't be opposed to doing another if if they needed. So yeah.

SPEAKER_04 39:24

So have you got a return ticket booked? Do you have you uh planning to head back to the US and like is there something you're going back for that you could then come back to Australia afterwards?

SPEAKER_00 39:32

Well, I like I was planning on doing the the remaining four of the GNCCs, uh, but they don't really fire up till September. So um yeah, I was just going back to like I've been living in California um the past sort of eight months or whatever. So um yeah, I was just basically going back to move back to North Carolina and East Coast and sort all that out and then you know, try and figure out what I was going on to do from there.

SPEAKER_04 39:59

So what does what does the future look like for you, mate? Do you uh see yourself long term in the US? Is this state of the sport in the US in the off-road space healthy enough to s, you know, kind of make a living, get by, continue racing full-time professionally over there?

SPEAKER_00 40:16

It is, yeah. And it's just tough. There's only like a certain amount of rides. Um and you know, when my the team I was riding for kind of closed down, I didn't really have an option to go anywhere else because there was like all the seats were really taken.

SPEAKER_03 40:31

So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:32

Um and then like I was privateer last year, and then um, yeah, obviously this year I kind of started with the with the desert thing um for the first half. But yeah, like um the the sports, like obviously it's the state, you know, it's always it's always going to be like going pretty well over there as far as like there's always gonna be lots of numbers and and support um there. But yeah, it's just yeah, it's tough to when you when you like kind of lose a spot to find a new one, you know. So I I want to go back to GNC C for sure, so I'm trying to I'm trying to find a spot to to go racing there. But um, you know, it's tough.

SPEAKER_01 41:14

Seems definitely like a different world over there, but when you see the spectators just lining the track and then that video of was it Luke, I think, and he and he went up the hill and hit that lady and then took off again at Iron Man or something. Yeah, that's it. How different is it compared to here in that sense with the spectator? There's no it seems like there's no rules in a sense.

SPEAKER_00 41:34

It definitely it's definitely a lot more wild, like less like regulated and less rules or whatever. Um like spectators for sure. Um they're just kind of littered all over the track. You know, I've hit a few spectators before, it's just seems to be a part of the seems to be a part of the race course. It's an added feature to the race course.

SPEAKER_01 41:53

And do you find the racing's more competitive than here or similar or it's definitely like it's a deeper field, you know.

SPEAKER_00 42:04

There's just so many guys that are uh like top riders. Um and like quite often there'll be like you know, eight different winners in a year, you know. Yeah, right. Yeah. So it's like the depth is obviously is obviously quite deep. And then um, you know, it's just like the the racing is is similar, like in a two or three hour cross country, but it's like it's rain, hail, or shine, like it doesn't matter if it's you know, a complete dust bowl or you know, the muddiest race ever, as long as they get the trucks and everything in there on the Thursday before the race, you know, everyone's going racing.

SPEAKER_01 42:42

So yeah, with our track this weekend, it was pretty tough compared to say a hard GNC C would would that be an easy GNCC really?

SPEAKER_00 42:52

Yeah, I mean, just it it would be considered a pretty easy one, yeah. Like 90% of the track was perfect conditions, right? So that's yeah, if if you have to think of it as like, yeah, that was that was pretty well perfect conditions.

SPEAKER_04 43:07

So can you can you think of any examples of a GNCC track that um like explain them to us that makes them harder? Do they have hills that are steeper or bogs that are deeper, or are the whoops just more spread apart and and more hollowed out?

SPEAKER_00 43:23

Well, some, for example, are like just slippery clay or whatever. So, you know, if it has a sm small little bit of rain or whatever, it's slippery. Yeah, but then you know you could get an inch of rain race morning and it just turns the place into an absolute zoo, you know. Uh like yeah, and then some of the ones have like a lot of hills and and stuff like that, and you know, it's just chaos, especially like the the 10 a.m. race gets out there and there'll be like fifty bikes stuck on one hill.

SPEAKER_01 43:52

And probably more competitors too, I'm guessing.

SPEAKER_00 43:55

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:55

So like choose the track up twice as much and the track gets like super.

SPEAKER_00 44:00

Super deep ruts and the track two the the track crew do a good job of like making little cutouts and adjusting it as the day goes on. But um yeah, like quite often it's uh it's pretty brutal.

SPEAKER_04 44:12

Hey, last time you were racing in Australia, oh man, maybe it might have been probably certainly before 19, probably 17, 18, when you're on those um, you know, factory and semi-factory teams, there were trucks at our AEC, uh, you know, with awnings and multiple, you know, uh, and then we kind of went through this period where we didn't have didn't feel like we had much of a factory presence while you were pretty much in the US, you know, just coming out out the back of COVID. Uh, and now uh Doug's has gone and got a truck back, you know. Um AJ's always been there with his truck, you know, with the Yamaha guys, they're always doing a kick-ass job at making it look professional. Um I assume our that setup side of things looks nothing like the US. The US pits are semis and multiple team trucks, and it's just a million times bigger, and the atmosphere in the pits is different to the atmosphere we get here.

SPEAKER_00 45:03

Yeah, um definitely like the the amount of money that like people are putting in, uh even on like smaller teams and stuff in the States, is you know, that like there's a lot of trucks, you know, lining the pits at the um at the GNCC stuff. But I mean in in some instances it's overkill, like they'd be better off spending money developing their bikes for some teams because uh there's teams that have all the all the trucks and all the show and then their bikes don't make the race, so you know it's the yeah, so I feel like it's kind of the same everywhere you go a little bit, but um you know, it's just like some of it's necessary because of you know it looks uh it looks professional or whatever, and then like I'm sure it's like a selling point to get sponsors or whatever, they get the logos on the truck and all that stuff. So I can understand like both sides of it for sure, but um yeah, it's just over there. There's just a whole I mean, even just like outside sponsors and that, there's probably a whole lot more that kind of um like recognize the series or or jump on board just because it's it's just uh kind of like a bigger um you know racing scene.

SPEAKER_04 46:14

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Um all right, mate. Well, we're not gonna chew up too much of your more of your time. Um Hatter is next for you. Uh so you're gonna be here for the next two weeks. You're gonna, like you said, head up to Hopeton and do some stuff with Duges up there, get some bike setup stuff done. Uh, and then soon after Hatter, I assume you're heading home. But there is a chance you never know, we may see you back here to race some more before GNCC's kick off in September. What's your plans? Uh six days coming up and everything. Uh you people you guys are gonna nominate soon, or maybe you might have already nominated. I can't remember.

SPEAKER_00 46:43

Um I didn't um I didn't put my I I really want to get to another one. I didn't put my name down this year because or even the last couple of years because I didn't really have a a solid sort of backing just for my normal race and stuff. So um, but yeah, like hopefully I can get on a on a bit of a team next year and and um yeah, have another crack at six days. I'd love to.

SPEAKER_04 47:03

When when does it to get on a team next year for the US? When's it important to get some good results and um you know, go and put your resume in? What time of year?

SPEAKER_00 47:12

I don't know. I mean I've been talking to people for months trying to figure stuff out. Um but I mean in the next couple months I should be able to know whether something's gonna be available or not. So we'll just see how that goes. And um, you know, yeah, I could go and I could go and lay down some good results, but you know, in September it's almost too late, you know, when the race starts off. Like the year the year my team shut down, like I got third at the last round. Um and yeah, just no one really gave a shit. That's just brutal.

SPEAKER_04 47:42

Is that is that because you're Aussie and not American? Are they do they kind of favor American riders?

SPEAKER_00 47:47

Not really. I mean like they're just it's just like I don't know. It's just tough. There's only a certain amount of spots and then you know, it's just kind of the way it goes sometimes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 47:58

And what are you doing for work when you're not racing and getting paid to race a bike?

SPEAKER_00 48:02

Well, I've just been racing to be honest, and just kind of making um, you know, making it work, just racing. Because like even even like smaller events will will have like a pro purse or whatever they call it, and yep, you know, you can make a little bit of money or make your money back.

SPEAKER_04 48:16

So okay, that's pretty good.

SPEAKER_00 48:18

Uh you know, just that, and then that's about it, really. I was doing a little bit of RD stuff with the with the KTM group there at the start of the year, but um yeah. That's just kind of what I've been up to.

SPEAKER_04 48:30

Cool. Well, mate, it's been a pleasure having you on. Uh, like I said, we're gonna catch up with you in the next couple of weeks. We'll tee that up to go through life since, especially since you left our shores, because we've uh Stephen Tuff, Tuffy has done some features with you in ADB, but we haven't ever done a podcast with you. The podcast has only been going for nine months. So it'd be really cool just to catch up, talk about life, even if it is while you're in the US, we can uh get on a call like this and just uh yeah, see what's been happening, what's changed, because yeah, kind of when you went over there and you went over with Strangey and it was uh on the Cowie team, and then you you jumped around and we saw you on other bikes. We kind of want to know what happened, what it looked like, what it was like racing over there. So we'll make sure we uh hook back up in the next couple of weeks and sit down with you for a good long chat.

SPEAKER_00 49:12

Yeah, sounds good. That'd be awesome.

SPEAKER_04 49:15

All right, mate, Ripper. We'll speak to you probably after Hatter as well.

SPEAKER_00 49:18

Too easy. Good to talk to you boys. Thanks, Nottingham. Cheers, Naughty. Cheers, bud.

SPEAKER_04 49:22

Yeah, that was interesting, wasn't it? Because um it's always hard to tell, like, how does a if he's gonna come and race an Aussie round that's as close as we can get it to a GNCC, I would have thought Castadon would be one of the closest you're gonna get to a GNCC round, which he said it was close, but it was probably hard to hear from for you that it's not still not as hard and technical and nasty as their tracks.

SPEAKER_01 49:45

No, I don't I don't consider myself a pro or a world-class writer, so I don't I'm yeah, I'm happy with how hard Caston was. So I'm 42, mate, I'm past my end of the game. Uh yeah, look, I think, and as Will said the same, like that hill at Dungold was considered an easy hill, you know. I think maybe we need to toughen our tracks up a little bit. The one thing I will give credit to the Vic Off-Roads team, they did a really good event. Um, and I really need to touch on how well they run the event. They had a massive big screen up that we were watching the AMA Supercross uh motocross on the Sunday morning while uh doing riders' briefs. They had a heap of food cars, they had a distilled water cart. We could go and fill up your water bottles, they had showers, toilets, they had a bike wash, yep, they had portable lighting throughout the whole venue, they had live on YouTube with commentating, they really put their money where their mouth is, and they're getting a lot of people show up for these events, which also helps. But I do think that some of the other states have a bit of work to do. Uh, and it's not, I think it's hard. I I don't, I'm not picking on the states or the clubs or anything. It's hard to get volunteers, it's hard to get money into events. But when it actually looked like a professional off-road event, it was very impressive, it was really well laid out. The track, as I said in previous podcasts, they had some chicken lines around all the tougher obstacles. So any logs, they had a chicken line, it just had a little bit of bunting going off to the side with like a chicken on a piece of paper, like a cardboard and an arrow, and then the hard line straight, you know. And that was something that I think helped make the day flow really well, too, because there wasn't the women's development class getting stuck on logs that were a foot high. Yeah, you know, so the the track flowed and the pros could probably make passes. I made passes in them spots, and I think it allowed it to flow a lot better, even the tests. They need to really do that in a lot of our racing and fine, toughen, toughen the tracks up, make them really hard, but just cater, try and cater to the people who aren't quite there. Because we had, I think we had 90 or 100 and something in our class with Master's Vest, but most of them were clubmen and sportsmen.

SPEAKER_04 52:08

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_01 52:09

So they're not racing to be professional, they just love racing zero against people, they pay the bills, right? They're massive, they're a massive portion of the the entries, and and when you can cater to everyone, it it allows you to grow, I think. It really helps you grow. So that was one thing that I was pretty impressed with. Uh the whole event just was a really well done thing. They had a live podcast on the Friday night, right? The boys, yeah, the boys from Cross Rudd and Will got on there and Greenie and stuff. So I think I'd love to see that kind of atmosphere at every event, and I think it'll grow more with that, uh, which was really good. So big shout out to the Vic Offroad guys. It was probably the the best event in terms of something for everyone this year. Yeah, uh, and the track might have been hated by some or loved by some, but yeah, it's just I I really enjoyed the weekend from the whole perspective, you know. Yeah, so yeah, it was a pleasure.

SPEAKER_04 53:07

Cool. Um, so let's talk then. Kind of we we're gonna keep going down the line before we jumped on with Snotty and look at like any other guys that you think surprised you probably should have done better. Um, the especially on the on the in the cross country. Um yeah, Jeremy rode really well, Carpenter.

SPEAKER_01 53:23

Um he was doing really well. I think Sunday he had a bike problem, uh, blew his bike up. Uh, so I wasn't sure what happened there. Uh but yeah, he was riding really well. Uh Max Midwinner rode really well. Uh there's a few Victorians that I probably didn't know, haven't done a lot of the AEC stuff. They've just been riding the other rounds. Yeah. Um, but yeah, anyone in that top 20, you know, look, Stefan Gronkwit's got 20th.

SPEAKER_02 53:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:58

And we know how good a rider he is, right? Like so, I mean, Chandler, Chandler Burns and Oliver Patano, all them guys have been racing our AEC series, they've all been pretty well doing pretty well. Luke Cello, there's a few of them there. Uh it's hard, you know. Like there's so many people at that round. I think we had what do we have in entries? Just seniors we had over 260 on on the cross-country track. That's a lot of bikes on a 24k sand loop.

SPEAKER_04 54:29

So yeah, you had 245 that finished, then you looked like you had something like 20 DNF'd. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, but that probably goes to show how brutal it actually was, despite Stonny saying he's had tougher in the US, and despite you saying, Oh, I think for you, you know, Briggsie, you probably took yourself down a bit for those that are listening. Briggsy is not far off a pro pace. Uh no, I'm a whale. And you've only got to look at times to see and so for to see guys that many people DNFing, I'm sure it was actually probably quite challenging. Um hey, let's talk about the girls because we finally had a bit of a mix-up, uh, a bit of a change up in the results with um Jess Gardner's been dethroned, probably temporarily, I'm sure. But uh she was uh actually finally dropped around, which surprised probably a lot of us because we kind of thought that she's gonna be good in the sand, she's good everywhere, but she'll especially be able to use her experience and everything in the sand. But Rach Rachel Archer got her on the uh Saturday in the cross country, um, and it was pretty tight, about 30 seconds in it between them. Um, but Rachel Archer, I mean, we we don't really talk much about Rachel Archer. I mean, she I don't think she's been raised.

SPEAKER_01 55:41

Yeah, well, she's a Kiwi too, so that that's probably why we don't have a lot of access to her. But she's just come off her pregnancy as well, so congrats to her on the baby. But for her to be, I think she said nine weeks postpartum in an interview, that's impressive, right? Like, so she's always been really talented, and to see her come out and do what she done just shows that you know how well she actually does ride when she's riding well.

SPEAKER_04 56:06

So yeah, and her fastest lap time was actually a whole minute faster uh than Jess's fastest lap time. So um, yeah, it's that's a pretty impressive result. Hey, Maddie Simpson was a bit further down the line, fifth. I kind of thought maybe this might suit her a bit more this round being sandy, being a bit motocross-y, um, but she ended up in fifth. Did she didn't have a tip over anything that we we didn't see or catch?

SPEAKER_01 56:30

Oh, look, I don't know. And for Maddie, too, that cross-country format's probably a little different than what she races. She raced a lot of pro motocross with the women's, and then she's she does a she's been doing really well the start of the year with the sprints and all that, but then just that it's hard, it's hard to pass, it's hard to to know when to go, when to hold, when to to get into your comfort zone or push in two hours of racing, right? Like, especially with a what a 40-minute lap time. Like, do I just cruise the first lap, try and sprint the last, or I sprint one, cruise one, sprint one, do I sprint the whole thing? It's challenging, and I think part of the other girls, you look at Emily, Maddie, Healy, Jess, and Rachel, they're all a bit older, a bit more experienced. I think that's just part of that, to be honest. Yeah, like Maddie's every bit as quick as them, and I think if you put them on a motocross track, I think Maddie would be smiling and go and watch this girls. But when you get into these difficult races where it's a long two hours, it's just experience a lot of it. Like Jess is so crafty. Um, I haven't had a great deal of knowledge on Rachel, but I know Maddie Healy's pretty good at that longer stuff. She just won think, so she's she's comfortable doing the longer races, and then Emily's always been consistently a great writer, so yeah, that it's just that experience. And I think Maddie's still only 17, so she's she's gonna come a long way. Yeah, she'll be fine.

SPEAKER_04 57:58

I think those long cross countries, especially at that age, you know, you're not even fully developed with your muscles and your bones and everything at the age of 17. And and you only got to look at the following day, uh, when she was right behind Jess Gardner in the sprints. Um, she's third, so yeah, that longer format poor thing, 17. It might have been the first time she's done a two-hour cross country probably in that class, pro class. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so but hey, look, I don't want to uh gloss over the Rachel Archer uh feat either because we every we every round we talk about how Jess Gardner is untouchable and she's so fast, which she is, and she's so crafty, she knows it so well. And Rachel Archer's come over and won both days. Uh and like I said, day one convincingly. Now Rach and Jess um uh on day one were far further ahead than the rest of the field, they kind of gapped um back to third. But um, for Rach to come over and do that, we put Jess on a pedestal over here being Aussies and just following her career for so long. Um do you know if Rachel's hanging around and racing the whole series?

SPEAKER_01 59:01

Do you know if I haven't heard, and and to be honest, I didn't even get a chance to talk to a lot of the guys. Everyone's so busy and whatever after the cross-country cleaning and then resting and recovering and walking tests and all that. Uh I haven't heard. Um, but yeah, I I don't think it's a bad thing that she's here. Yeah, I think I think it's hard for her now to be championship contender with four rounds gone already, or or what six rounds, sorry. We're at round seven and eight. So she's won two out of six. Jess and Maddie have probably got a pretty comfortable lead over her.

SPEAKER_03 59:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 59:40

Uh, but at this stage, I think it's good to have her here. It's good the more girls we have, the the better, better our racing is, right? Yep, and like looking looking at the even some of the sprints, like Jess on the first sprint was fifth, you know. So there's Maddie Healy was in front of Maddie Simpson and Emily Lambert. So, you know, like yeah, Emily's a motocrosser, and it just shows that the different type of format suits some people more than others. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:10

Uh okay, let's look at where we are then after uh six rounds because Will Rupert is a fair way in front of Jai and Corey. Now it's it's not it's one bad round of one DNF, and all of a sudden we're tight on points. Poor old Jay is technically second, uh, but they're the he's you know uh what's he 20, 19 points down on Will, and Corey's 21 points down on Will.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:32

Yeah, well they I don't think they've updated the scores yet either. So I think I think Will won the Saturday, so probably gained three points, but then got fourth on the Sunday, so lost seven. So I think Corey's actually made three or so points up on Will from the weekend.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:48

Joy had a DNF on the Saturday, and then I think he was six, sixth or seventh on the Sunday. So yeah, he was they haven't got the overalls up yet for the Sunday. Yeah, so he was sixth. Yeah, yeah, okay. So that'll pop up. It's gonna be hard, hard to know the exact points. I think Will's still got a comfortable lead, especially going into Kempsey.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:10

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:10

I mean they've got to get through Haddar first, which anything can happen. I I don't, I honestly don't know who's gonna win Haddad. Yeah, I'd say them two will be in the top five of it. Uh anything can happen. You throw you know Corey Hammond in and all our other desert races, you know. So anything's open with that race. Uh, but yeah, we'll just see, right? Like I think Kemsey favours Will probably a little more. That's a bit of his home ground. He knows that track really well, but it's gonna it's getting good.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:44

Yeah, it's gonna be good. There it's tight enough to still be competitive all the way down to Kemsey will be probably the big one because if Will comes out and obliterates everyone at Kemsey and Corey or Jai or just have any issues, um it's you know, he's just gotta ride at home at Canalpin then pretty much and just score some points to lock it in. But it would be great to see Corey and Jai, especially poor old Jai at his fittest, um, uh and be able to maybe peg some points back off Will at Kempsey and then take it down to that last round at Canalpin later in the year. Um, and that's obviously for the outright. Um it's it's it's Coop Sido, he's taken out E1 at the moment, and he's got again it's not a it's not a foregone conclusion at all. There's only a handful of points between him and Jeremy B.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:27

Carpenter with within the Yeah, and and they probably still need to be updated from the weekend, even though Coop Coop won the Saturday. I think he got second on the Sunday to Max. Yep. So yeah, uh it's definitely tightening up in that class too. And I think Jeremy's I think Jeremy might have DNF'd the Sunday with a a bike blown up, so um which which is a shame. So that kind of opens up that two-point two-horse race at the front, really. Now, which yeah, but it's good, it's still a good race. And Max is Coop's probably in the hot seat there, but yeah, anything can happen.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:02

Yeah, Coop is. There's still four rounds of points, you know. So what well, that's a hundred points on the table still. Um, so I think it'll be really cool to see what happens in that class. It is tight enough. Uh, but yeah, I mean the the main class is the E2 class, that's uh you know, Will Jay, and even Kogan Locke is still in it, you know, especially with a good result on the weekend.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:21

So that's that's gonna be the tightest, and then obviously in uh E2 Kogan can possibly steal second from Jay now, depending on how bad his injury is and what happens, and correct. You know, I'm sure Jay will want to race it out the rest of the year, but I think too, he's just gonna he'll probably go home or may stay down there for Hatter, finish Hatter, just do his best with it, grid it out, and then get an MRI or see what's going on. Might even be fine, it might have just been a stinger, who knows? But fingers crossed, I I'd love I want to see Jay in it just for the racing, just to challenge Will and Corey, you know.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:55

It's good for the sport, so yeah, and then in E3, Corey has extended his lead kind of uh significantly again over the weekend. It's still Max Midwinter's still there. He's Max Midwinter is still there, but um Corey can ride this one in pretty much. He hasn't dropped around, I don't think, in E3. Um Brock grab him, didn't turn up. I was hoping to see the uh the Stark there for that three-hour cross-country season.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:18

There was a couple there was a couple of Starks there, yeah. Okay, yeah, because I don't know how they went, but yeah, there was a couple of Starks there. I don't know what happened to Brock, whether he's just um the travel got to him or such a big round, or I didn't I haven't heard or spoke to him, so yeah, I expected him to be there, but I was a bit of bum when I didn't see him there.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:35

So yeah, he won a local motocross. And in fact, he raced on that Stark is a couple of weeks ago every possible class you could or something. I think he won all of them where he lived out near where he was. So maybe he was still uh overcoming his big motocross day. But yeah, it was a bit of a bummer because he if he scored points at this round um and good points, then you know he'd be a lot closer to Corey, but we're gonna lose Brock after this round, which will pretty much make it difficult for him to do any better than third in the E3 class as well. And I was just curious to see how that Stark went in the sand and wet sand over three hours, just in terms of how long the battery would go. He's obviously doing battery swaps. I know he's got two bikes there, um, and he's getting pretty good at that stuff, so but it would have been cool to see. Um, all right, and now, mate, next round. Well, like we said, we're off to Kempsey. It's gonna favour Will dry, dusty, probably, because they're just not getting rain up at Kempsey. This that'd be my guess.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:30

Oh, you you don't know. I really do. Like it's this time of year where we can get an East Coast low come through on a dump of 20-30 mil a week before. So it'd be nice to have just some nice conditions for once, not mud, not dust, but that's that's which we're thinking.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:45

I think either way, it leans a little towards Will, to be honest. Yeah, I I don't think that it's out of the question that Corey or Jayer can beat Will in them conditions. I just think that Will's very familiar with that terrain he's he lives up in near there uh he won there last year and he's gonna be hard to beat he'll he'll have a lot of confidence going into Kempsey yeah it suits his writing you know I think if his week around was going to be cast it and it's still come away with a win and then a fourth that's not a bad weekend especially and to be healthy after that crash really yeah uh I think he'll take that weekend any day of the week knowing that it's hasn't really heard his points lead too much uh and then going to Kempsey he can put in a solid run and try and bring it home to Canal to be honest so that's it's heading that way I'd like to see Corey steal a win or two off him in the meantime. It's not that I want to see Will lose. I just want that title race to be tight right I want to see good racing.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:49

So um yeah it'll be interesting to see how it shapes up anything can happen between now and then and seven weeks time let's let's go again and and Hatter's the big uh the big player here because it's right in the middle they're all gonna do it and anything can happen at Hatter you can lose some confidence you can have a little tip over and and you know be coming back from a little from from an injury or anything uh in those final rounds so I think Hadder could play spoiler potentially hey and I forgot to mention the vets make you top five in fact it's 11 points I don't think I did top five well you're you're top I'm pretty sure you're gonna be I was trying to work out where you came but you'll still be top five after this round yeah yeah that's and I think there's like 11 points that separates or just around 11 to 15 points it'll separate you guys going in with four mouth left there's still a second John Day he's starting to clear out good old John has gone I need Braco to come back and steal some points off yeah off John.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:44

Yeah if you listen to Braco come back and make a mess for John and give a big dish to go there I think Braco will beat Kenzie and and no look I I hung out with John all weekend he's a great guy and we he we were chatting between tests and having a laugh and I've really enjoyed just riding this year racing as best I can race being you know out of it for a few years trying to find my speed again new bike and different things but it's been good like even my mate Steve and Macca went down Macca doesn't really like the stand Steve likes the stand they had a sprint they were 0.16 yeah and Macca got him in every sprint and Steve was like right there so they had some great battles and they'd come in and they were marking each other on the track was I think Mac was taken off in front of Steve so then Steve would try and catch him and and it's just been really enjoyable series and just even traveling to all these places with some mates and having a pub feed every second night and whatnot it's been great and a lot of people had some people come up say they've enjoyed the podcast which is really cool to hear that makes me stoked on doing it and trying to bring some content to the to the sport and help it grow like I would love to see every round like the Vic off road like I really want to see the series grow. Heaps more kids the kids were amazing to watch all weekend on a tough tough track they were ripping like all of them you know all the J4 3 2 ones um the EJ kids they were ripping too the women like it's so good such a good vibe at these events I I don't know why more people don't get to them to be honest.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:19

So no it's great great to see and yeah I don't know vets is fun there's still I've still got to uh get a lot better to to get anywhere near joy yeah I'm still enjoying it there's a hundred points you've got a hundred points left this year and there's a lot of movement in that vets class it's tight mate the vets class looks sick it's the closest competition we've pretty much got so I'm I'm enjoying watching it mate we've been cheering you on so uh and it'll be cool I think but when we come to the end of the season we're gonna obviously wrap it up um from a pro perspective but I want to wrap it up with you too and even in the mag and on the pod and just talk about the whole season as a punter like you said because you know if we can get our series kind of like Snotty explained as well as entertaining as the um uh GNCC's it's I think it's I don't think it's ever going to get to a GNCC when America has 320 million people who thrive on motorsport and they're getting five to twenty five thousand fans even go to them.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:16

Yep I'd love to see that I think that your races like think and Hatter have that potential uh but our off-roads I I think where we do sort of struggle is we're so remote. Yeah a lot of America has these populations and like even Iron Man's only two three hours out of Indy so they've got 10 or 10 thousand people who drive two hours to watch some top bus racing yeah you know Carson and I just drove 15 hours like you know the everyone who rides that I know isn't going to drive 15 hours to watch us get bulky and mud at City Caston you know and then then you get down there and I think the town probably has a population of two three thousand if that yep uh it's very remote which is part of that's racing in Australia like I it's why I love it right like and it was great you're out of the cities there's no cell reception you're kind of there with the people at the race and that's what is so cool about our community our racing community so yeah and that's part of what I love about it in Australia you're camping with your mates you're out there you're having fun and yeah it's just an awesome experience that yeah can't be bought.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:25

Were you swagging it or did you go back to a hotel?

SPEAKER_01 1:11:28

No so we stayed in at Castington in the pub on the main road um we just took our swags they got shut down two years ago from a massive storm they haven't reopened but she let us just stay there 40 bucks a night swagged it on the floor and it was warm toilets yeah and it was only 15 20 minutes from the track so that was great but we could have swagged it out at the track I just didn't really like that on the Sunday it was two degrees in the morning when we did our sight lap it was yeah call me a bitch but I was cold I would have been in that pub mate I would have been in that nice warm pub for sure. Yeah and it was wet and it was wet well the ground on the Saturday all my gear was wet yeah I had nowhere to hang it out so then it's in the trailer I put it on wet on the Sunday I couldn't be on my feet on my hands the first sight lap no I I did it with a jumper on and all that and I rode the jump I had my jumper on for the first three sprints to be honest but it was still good like I still loved it like everything about it just toughens you up it it's it's kind of what Hunter said to be honest like we think we got it hard here in Oz and then he he was in the back of a van shivering driving to the track to go race and there's kids on the side of the road just riding their pushbike to work because it's normal to school sorry not work to school and he goes that it taught me a lot about what tough really is like they live in tough every day and it's normal.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:52

Yeah and we we think we got it tough but we got it pretty easy so yeah yeah we do it's good character building racing this events uh series like this doing the whole series too it's good because it teaches you you know you've got to persevere through all this kind of stuff it's awesome um yeah all right mate we'll we're gonna catch up to another AEC uh after uh Kempsey so AEC rap so we'll we'll uh we'll catch up and do the next one then mate we're probably gonna speak anyway but between now and then for ProMX raps uh and uh see who else we've got we've got a few more guests coming up on the podcast including Snotty too so and we'll also wrap Hatter up in two weeks that'll be fun because that's gonna be an epic event um actually in fact I wanted I I would have raced it had I not come back pretty much like you across the hay plains a week ago from Fink and I was like the missus said are you gonna race I said I'm not driving back out this way in three weeks I've got so much work to do and I can't do the hay planes again so I won't be there but um yeah I'm keen to wrap it up because I think it'll be a pretty good event.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:49

Yeah and there's a lot going on now just with the um all the Oz SX stuff coming out I think it's really cool we need to get Bales on the phone if we can and have a chat to him because looks like a good series this year. Like some major towns back to Newcastle I'm so keen for that. So Ken Roxan coming over for Geelong so yeah it's gonna be like Australian motocross and supercross seems to be growing it's just you know we don't have the money that we need at the moment but yeah it's awesome.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:19

Well you know what we need to do Briggsy we need to get when Kenny comes over let's go get him to Urban you and I it's the only thing we might be better at in that is surfing.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:27

Maybe have you got his phone number I don't so I'll hit him up I'll get it off battles and see if he wants to go for a surf.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:36

Kenny follows us he le comments and likes every time you can DM him and give it a go. We'll see if he's up for a surf. Alright mate I'm gonna let you go and like I said guys we'll catch up again after Kemsty for the next AET wrap that's uh cast it and sounded like an epic round the stand the uh cross country format the rain it was another good one and the um Vic offroad guys put on a great show so good on to them and we'll see everyone again after Kemsey.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:00

Yeah sounds good thanks for