2022 A4DE: JOSH GREEN’S ROLE IN BACON’S BIG WIN

While all the accolades and media attention has been deservedly heaped on 19-year-old ShopYamaha rider, Kyron Bacon, for his breakout win at the recent Australian 4-Day Enduro (A4DE), the critical role that his teammate, Josh Green, played in Bacon’s win can’t be overlooked. What really jumped out at us in the wake of the event was how gracious Green was in ‘defeat’, and how quick Bacon was to acknowledge the role Greeny played in ushering him through his maiden 4-Day. Here’s what we mean…

Josh Green put in an awesome performance to win the E2 class and run second to Bacon in the Outright standings, but clearly took pride in the bigger picture; in the team’s collective 4-Day results. “I’m not sure what makes me happier; getting second Outright for myself or seeing Kyron get the win,” Green admitted, straight after the event. “He is a great kid and riding so well at the moment, so congratulations to Kyron and his family for the effort they put in and winning this event. Apart from the cold, it was a great 4-Day and the banter with the boys on the trail was all-time. Kyron was on my minute, then directly behind us was Todd Waters and [Green’s other teammate] Blake Hollis, so it was just a lot of fun being out there. The team did an awesome job in preparing for the event and supporting us through it. You don’t get results like Yamaha did this week without a lot of hard work behind the scenes,” Green went on to say.

Meanwhile, Bacon’s comments reflect his appreciation for the role that both his team and teammates played in his standout A4DE performance. “Like many of the guys here this year, I hadn’t done a 4-day before, so there was a lot to learn and take in, but I really liked this style of racing,” explained the 19-year-old Tasmanian. “I soon found out this event is about teamwork. So I owe a really big thanks to Yamaha and everyone on the ShopYamaha team, and especially to Greeny who was on the same minute as me and was able to guide me the whole week.”

The selfless teamwork displayed by his riders didn’t go un-noticed by ShopYamaha team boss, AJ Roberts, either. “Both Kyron and Blake were 4-Day rookies, so we had no choice but to really work as a team to get through the event. At the 4-Day, there are a lot of rules you need to understand simply so you don’t lose time for going into a time control too early or too late, for example. When you consider that 19-year-old Kyron and 18-year-old Blake had zero experience with traditional enduro for this 4-Day – I mean, they’d never even done a work period before – it underlines how valuable Josh Green was in the boys’ success. Basically, Greeny educated the young blokes and got them both through the event – whether that was advice about how to predict trail times and distances on the transport sections or looking after their bikes for four days. This is the 11^th season Greeny has been on the ShopYamaha team with me, so it was really gratifying to see him pass on all that experience and wisdom to the young guys. We simply wouldn’t have got the fantastic results we did at the event without it,” Roberts went on to say.