What do you get when you take 1200 riders, a 3000-foot mountain sliced with roads and trails from iron mining and a dirt road hillclimb qualifying round leading to an extreme enduro that only a handful of riders are able to finish? Not wild enough? Then throw in some star power with the likes of Travis Pastrana, Jeremy McGrath, David Knight, Ronnie Renner and a whole lot of guys who are famous in places other than the United States, and you get an event that's crazier than the Nitro Circus Series. And we haven't even mentioned the packed beer tents, the incomprehensible awards ceremonies and the wild and unpredictable weather. Erzberg has a flair all its own, and it is 100 percent out-of-control. Plus, it's in Europe-Austria to be exact. Rev up the crazy-o-tron, we're going in!
Situated in the Austrian Alps, the Iron Mountain is deep in KTM country. In fact, the event is largely a KTM and Red Bull festival-just picture a lot of orange bikes and spastic people. It spans four days, and as an event, it creeps along, with the Iron Road Prologue taking up three of those days. Thursday is reserved for the Knigsklasse, or twin-cylinder, class. It's a heads-up match between the new KTM 950R Super Enduro and the BMW HP2. While the road is smooth, this winding 17.5 kilometers is comparable to an all-dirt, much rougher and much rockier Pikes Peak, a place where bikes of this magnitude can really breathe. It was my second appearance at the event, and I was riding a factory BMW HP2. I get invited to Erzberg since I used to be fast and I have a history on Bavarian-built, flat-twin-powered bikes. This year was even more important, as it served as a backdrop to the KTM Super Enduro introduction (see page 72) in which KTM brought out full-factory race versions. How crazy is it? Well, if you ever get the chance to ride a 120-horsepower bike that completely shreds the tire in just a few short miles, we can talk about it.
Without a whole lot of practice on the course, I was doomed to a couple of runs in which my wrist closed the throttle way too early even though I couldn't tell by the pucker factor going through my head and other parts of my body. KTM had Dakar winner Cyril Despres, former World Enduro Champion Giovanni Sala and current WEC Champ David Knight pinning the big new orange dirt bike. Although BMW's Simo Kirssi came within two seconds, Knight took the victory with about as much practice as I'd had on the hill. So much for my lack-of-practice excuse-he's just better.
The Oktoberfest-style beer tent fired up the first evening to welcome the riders on the regular bikes. It would later serve as an awards ceremony hall. The celebrating started before the event even began. A contingent of famous American riders showed up-Travis Pastrana, Jeremy McGrath and Ronnie Renner-but they held nothing compared with the local riders who were deep in the beer garden doing backflips off the tables and prematurely bedding down right outside the tent in the pouring rain. Yeah, it rained the whole time.
Early Friday morning, the prologue race gets going. The prologue consists of 1200 riders racing up the mountain road to qualify for Sunday's hare scrambles. Each day, riders get one run up the road to qualify into the top 500 who are allowed to start Sunday's race. BMW and KTM continued to run the twins up the road to try to win the prologue, with most of the top riders also racing up on a second bike, the one they will actually race on Sunday. I borrowed a Gas Gas EC250 from the Austrian importer, which was the same bike I'd used last year. Knight switched to a 300, Despres to a 250. McGrath was borrowing a transformed freestyle CR250, and Pastrana took his usual RM250. Since the course was rapidly deteriorating from the impact of 1200 riders, fast times are usually set on Friday. But it was Kirssi who took the low time on Saturday to win the prologue stage of the event. Most top riders easily qualified in the first 50, giving them a front row start on the hare scrambles.
The evening party in the beer tent was bigger and more packed than ever! It was so full that I couldn't get in, nor did I feel the need to since the smoke was so thick you could have hung a hat on it. Besides, I'd easily qualified in the front row (sixth on the BMW, which I parked, and 22nd on the Gas Gas), and I was going to need all the rest I could get for the hare scrambles.
Unique to say the least, the 20-mile course setup on Sunday is sadistic. And with the rainy weather, the only thing riders had going for them was that it wouldn't be dusty. In waves of 50, participants started every 30 seconds from the bottom of the open pit mine. The race began with a dead-engine start line, a couple turns, followed by a near vertical climb up the tailings to a rim road. Then you race around the road and continue up four more levels, each progressively softer and with less of a run. It is difficult just to make it up on your own, let alone with 50 other guys hucking softball-sized rocks back down at those below. I can tell you, because I caught one on my head, bobbled and headed back down into the way of 30 or so riders coming up at me. McGrath could tell you, too, because on my second attempt at going up the hill, I passed him coming back down. On my third failed shot, the leaders of the second row were cresting the top of the first step, and I became really motivated to get my ass over these next two steps and out of the war zone that was going to take place in approximately 10 more seconds.
I finally got out by running a gear higher and abusing the clutch to no end, but my race was squashed due to the number of riders ahead on the trail. Once we got into the forest, most of which was on the side of a very steep hill, the trail was ruined, slid off and mostly a greasy, root-infested mess. I picked off a few guys at a time as they slid off the side, and then it was a waiting game of sorts at every obstacle.
I'm not sure of the ethical code here, but I'll try to explain. Unless you know you can make it around a guy without hitting him or getting stuck, you don't do it. And if you do get in front and get stuck, well, you shouldn't have tried to get in front. Looking for good alternate lines is a plus, but it is also risky, as there may not be a way back to the right trail. We trudged along through the forest for a few miles, pushing up the hills and sliding down the drops with approximately 100 feet of riding in between. Then the course took the surviving riders back out to the open, exposed rock climbs from level to level to gain elevation. I hooked up with Renner for a few ledges, where we marveled at what complete jackasses some of the other riders were. They would cut in line to take a run at the hill. Since the rider trying to get a run was back a ways, a couple of these idiots would try and cut in front, shortening up the run and then getting themselves stuck. I got chopped about three times before I began to get a little hot-headed and threatened to knock one of these guys off the hill next time they did it. The language barrier worked wonders for me in Austria. Being the nice guy wasn't paying off. In fact, after helping one guy up a hill, he torpedoed me while I passed him on the next hill. Luckily, I made it, while his bike tumbled back down about 70 feet.
Each passing mile was getting torn up even worse, but then they headed us back into the forest. Here is where the race got interesting. Bad marking or unscrupulous characters, take your pick, but the bottlenecks were getting longer and the guys in front of me were not great riders. They must have cut off a big section of the course. So now I'm off my bike and helping guys who should not be this far into the course get out of the way so I can get through. And wouldn't you know it, with my bike a ways back down the trail, Mr. Cutoff Guy comes through, knocks over my bike and gets stuck where I was helping the last guy over. I really should have just pushed this guy off the side of the hill, but I was trying to be nice