Instead of eight hours, six hours was enough. The dirty 123 had a great training session three weeks before the first enduro race.
This is also how the season can start, and in the end we didn’t see anyone who wasn’t happy with Saturday’s baptism.
Before we start the “real” racing season, we joined the SloEnduro series for a warm-up event – the oldest SloEnduro organisers, Kamplc of Ajdovščina, organised the Kamplc SloEnduro Day. As enduro riders will remember from last year, this is a non-competitive event where riders take timed laps, and only they get to know their achievements and can compare them with their teammates and other participants.
With the addition of the 20chocolate Downhill Cup, this has become SloEnduro / 20chocolate DH Cup Day Kamplc. Two days in one!
Despite the wet conditions, the “day” was once again suitable for new riders who want to try racing for the first time this year. Despite the poor prospects, the Kamplc crew decided not to take the opportunity to postpone the race, which was an option in the propositions. Next weekend might not be wet, but it will certainly rain during the week, so the track would not be any better. In Ajdovščina it started to rain at night and the track got a bit wetter than we expected. It didn’t rain in the first part of the timeed runs, but it rained again in the second part, which only helped – there was more water on the track and the mud didn’t stick to the tyres. The only really slippery part was the section on the meadow. To make sure that the participants didn’t lose their spirits, we had shuttles running, an exception in the enduro events.
Special Achievements
The timing transponders started to pile up before the time was up, even the most persistent ones gave up almost two hours before 5pm, so we could start awarding the “special achievements” prizes – to the last one to return a chip (Rok Gleščič), to the one with the most laps (Karim Mladovan – 8 laps!, Maja Vojska and Lana Kuzma 4 each, newcomers Jože Robežnik and Tadej Kališnik also 4 on the ebikes), the oldest participant (Arsen Laharnar), the youngest who waited until the end … There was also something the fastest, but as it is not a race and we don’t publish the results, we won’t give out the name here.
It is also a special achievement to have got 123 riders from six countries on their bikes on what was clearly going to be a wet day! Mostly the young ones. The first social gathering of the season, a great training and the trails of Ajdovščina are a guarantee for participation.
Photos by Klavdij Blažko, stand by for two photo galleries, with Aleš Bajec contributing his own.