Midwest Husaberg UK Team

2011 Season

Feb 28, 2011

A Dream Start for Midwest Husaberg UK at the BEC

Category: 2011

Posted by: Jack Stringer

British Enduro Championship Round 1, Muntjac, Thetford Forest, Norfolk
February 27th 2011

In his first British Championship Enduro race riding his Midwest Husaberg UK machinery, Alex Rockwell finishes 2nd overall.

After a week of heavy rain, memories of last years event began to return but overnight the skies had cleared and the competitors awoke to a cold, dry morning. The course would be 6 laps, 22 miles in length of sandy, forestry going with 5 special tests spread throughout the day. The 2 new Midwest Husaberg UK team riders of Simon Wakely and Alex Rockwell started the day very cautiously as the special test was very slippery and a fall at this stage would be hard to recover from and set 5th & 10th fastest times respectively. On the second test both riders had become more confident with there Husaberg machinery and improved immensely resulting in setting 2nd & 3rd fastest test times which moved them up the leader board. Next were 2 tests back to back which would test the riders’ fitness. Factory KTM rider David Knight was first away and set a time under 5 minutes, then aboard the Husaberg TE 250, Simon Wakely set a time of 4mins 59secs with Alex Rockwell narrowly missing the 5 minute barrier by only 9 hundredths of a second. Determined to go under the 5 minutes time, Alex Rockwell gave his Husaberg FE390 everything on test number 4 and managed to set an outstanding time of 4mins 58secs which was only half a second slower than David Knights time! These 3 riders were the only people to set times under 5 mins all day. Simon Wakely again kept up his good speed setting 3rd fastest. The leader board now read Knight 1st, Wakely 2nd, Rockwell 3rd, now came the crucial final lap, 22 miles in 43 minutes, this pushed man & machine to the maximum and only one rider checked in on time and who else but one of the best riders in the world, David Knight. Alex Rockwell along with KTM riders Greg Evans & Paul Edmondson were the next in but they all incurred a 1minute time penalty all eyes were now on Simon Wakely if he made it in on time he would be 2nd overall. Unfortunately due to his lowly start position of 20th meant he would catch slower riders and waste time passing them and after 22 miles of this incurred 2mins time penalties and dropped him down the leader board to 5th overall. This moved Alex up to 2nd overall and 1st in E2 & under 23 classes. Alex said Finishing 2nd overall to David Knight is like winning the event. The bike ran perfect all day but I’m still learning how to get the best from it so we are still working on the set up

Si Wakely said I’m very pleased with my pace & fitness today but a little disappointed to miss out on 2nd overall but I will now be graded in the top 10 start position so that should help when the check times become tight. The bike and team were awesome and look forward to the next race.