Andreas Lettenbichler owned...
Andreas Lettenbichler owned the Red Bull Romaniacs. He took his BMW, all of his skill, plenty of speed and out toughed the field to win the event going away. It was the German's first major extreme enduro victory.
You can watch all the videos in the world, read every piece of information you can get on an event and until you go there and see it first hand, not fully understand it. Better yet, why not just go and try and race the 2009 Red Bull Romaniacs in the Professional class, that is what I tried!
To say I was underprepared isn't quite correct, but looking back, since hindsight is always 20/20, I was pretty beat up going in. I save you the full blare of the excus-o-tron but I was a little run down and hurting from a few pre-race bumps and bruises. This was only compounded by the prologue.
Jimmy Lewis' bike for the...
Jimmy Lewis' bike for the event was the new 2010 Husaberg 390. You will read a full test on the bike in an upcoming issue of Dirt Rider, but it is safe to say he was really happy with the bike despite his result in the race.
My job at the event was simple. Test the new 2010 Husaberg FE 390. So test it I did. On how well it survives crashes on ridiculous obstacles onto pavement. Well, not the first order of what a potential customer might be looking into when buying one of these bikes but for sure it taught me a lesson. I'm not as good at crazy endurocross, Romanian style. Especially when my confidence got blown the first time I hit the ground and never came back the rest of the practice session. Compound that with all of the new bruises I received and I was off to a rough start. Luckily the bike was just fine.
The Prologue qualifying went much better as it was dry. I even managed to make it into the finals, even though there wasn't much competition left out of the finals! I didn't crash as much this time (only one semi-spectacular over the bars) and was primed for the rest for the event. After all it was just going to be some tough trail riding and I'm pretty good at that.
The prologue timed race didn't...
The prologue timed race didn't go too much better...
Well the rude awakening came about 100 ft past the first Pro only section. It started to get steep and technical, wet and slippery and it only got worse from there. As I worked my way up and past about five other pros stuck on the same hill, then got stuck myself, I suddenly realized that the level of Pro was not just a tag you stick on your numberplate to show you are a better rider than the others. No, here it means you are going to suffer, no matter how good of a rider you are and if you don't make the sections you are humiliated by those that do. Plus you get disqualified too. Well I made three of the sections on the first day, each time getting more and more run down, finally giving in on an impossible for me climb. It took me 10-minutes to move the bike about one-foot up the trail, then with the help of a couple of locals we moved it ten more feet higher. Once perched atop the ledge that no longer had a clear run up to it so that a decent rider could have ridden right up it. My shaking and bewildered body decided to call it quits. Countless simple crashes and not enough muscle power left to get me up and more of the hellish pro sections was enough to send me back down the hill and onto the expert track. To really put some icing on the cake, just going into the service point, the half-way of the first day I hit a ditch and did a complete front flip smashing all my GPS equipment dead.
That was it. I wanted to ride more than you know, since the riding was so good here. My bike was still in remarkably good condition and the trails, (not the pro sections) were some of the best riding I have ever done. In fact one journalist said, "God made Romania for enduro bikes." He is correct.
I gave Team USA expert riders...
I gave Team USA expert riders Alexander Smith (left) and Chris Denison some pointers on how to do it right.
I'm not sure what sparked me back to life at the checkpoint, but I stopped shaking and cramping up and decided to ride the rest of the day with the expert riders. In fact just as I was about ready to go, Alexander Smith and Chris Denison were just leaving so I tagged along with them. I used them for navigation and they used me for pointers on how to get good lines through the tough sections. Yes, the tough sections for the experts were a lot more difficult than anything you'd find in a race stateside for sure. I'd venture to say that what we call an "A" section would be more like the difficult sections on the "hobby" class in Romaniacs.
I rode out the day and got my chance at the wall ride and the cable bridge, the latter after watching Smith ride right into the river like he meant to do it! With a shell of a body that was not capable of keeping up with my desire to ride, I decided it would be better to quit than to risk more humiliation or injury. And I could concentrate on testing the bike some more, even though I'd gotten a really good impression in my 12-hours in the saddle during the first day.