Two champs: one hit!
By TMX Archives on 14th Sep 12
CONGRATULATIONS to KTM on claiming both the MX1 and MX2 World Championships and with a whole Grand Prix to spare.
The Japanese factories may well be much bigger in physical (and monetary) terms but none comes closer to putting in the total effort required to win titles than the Austrian off-road specialist.
KTM are no strangers to picking up World titles. But they have – as we all know – done their level best over many years to crack what has proved to be a very elusive American motocross market.
They have more than achieved their aims in the cross-country arena, but the hardcore MXers have simply refused to be convinced by Team Orange – until this year.
By throwing everything, including the kitchen sink, at The Man – Roger de Coster and his ‘chosen one' Ryan Dungey – and building a 450 weapon to their exact spec, they have nailed the Championships and finally proved to the Americans that KTM really can build a winning motocross machine.
America is a huge market place that can take the Orange factory to new levels of sales.
Mind you, winning both World MX champs on the same weekend is not perfect from a marketing point of view...you could be said to be halving your promotional chances.
That is, you only get one front page and one report from which to trumpet both your champs.
A few team orders (perish the thought – we all know that there's no such thing as team orders!) could spread the titles over several weeks and keep those headlines rolling...
All of which is heady stuff and sadly for me I only get to see the World Champs through the wrong end of my binoculars and of course through the pages of TMX.
My weekly fix of real live off-road comes, as does most of yours, from much closer to home and last Sunday it came from deep in the forests of the English Lakes, where the Yorks Enduro Club staged a time card enduro with a little help from the local club.
Time card events, with the proliferation of easy-to-stage Hare and Hounds, are a fast disappearing part of off-road but it was brilliant to see around 180 riders turn-up, battle for a parking space down a pretty gnarly forest track, and then get stuck in to an 18-mile lap – incorporating an awesome forest special test.
No easy-peasy MX track test was this!
In truth it was no place for a beginner – though some brave souls gave it a go and all credit to them – but the experienced hands gave it a universal thumbs-up.
I'd just like to add my congratulations to the organisers for what clearly amounted to an epic amount of hard work. It was appreciated.
