USA’s Mike Brown to race A4DE

Hard on the heels of the news that 2012 Junior World Enduro Champion, Frenchman Mathias Bellino, has entered the 2014 Australian 4-Day Enduro (A4DE), Transmoto has discovered that American off-road legend, Mike Brown, will also join the Glenn Kearney-managed Husqvarna Enduro Racing Team for the upcoming A4DE. According to Kearney, “It’s been a great year for the new team during the first half of the AORC series. So to have both Mathias Bellino and Mike Brown join us for the 4-Day is great news. The 4-Day has often had an international flavour, so we’re happy to play our part in keeping that alive. Bellino has been dicing with Australia’s Matt Phillips in the EWC’s E3 class this season, so I’m pretty sure he’ll be riding the FE501 at the 4-Day. Brownie is a former AMA MX and EnduroCross champ, but I can’t confirm what model and class he’ll be racing at this stage. He had such a good time in Australia earlier in the year at the Enduro-X Nationals that he’ll use any excuse to get back here again.”

Speaking of Kearney (aka, GK or Ginger General), the 33-year-old had made himself unavailable for selection on Australia’s ISDE team this year because he’s decided to have post-season surgery on the ankle that he mangled way back in 2005, when he finished an amazing third Outright on debut in America’s GNCC series. “The thing has always had a limited range of movement since then, but it’s starting to hurt a lot more now, and not only when I’m riding,” explained GK, who’s leading the E3 class and sitting second Outright to Toby Price in the 2014 AORC. “It’s a real pity to miss the Six-Days in Argentina as we’ve got a strong team and the boys a really good chance of another podium or even winning, but I can’t put the operation off any longer. They’re going to fuse the joint – which shouldn’t affect the already limited movement my ankle has – but the doc says it should reduce the pain I’m getting big time.” In the meantime, Kearney will soldier on for the final six rounds of the AORC as well as contenting the A4DE at Dungog in mid-August – an event he won Outright in 2004 in Victoria aboard a Yamaha YZ250.

We ask that you stop reading this article here if you don’t want to look at Kearney’s ’05 ankle injury…