A Dozen Dirty Dimensions Of The 2012 A4DE

Andy Wigan

ONE – Milner’s Magic

Having won three special tests Outright at the recent ISDE in Germany, Daniel Milner was at short odds coming into the Warragul event. And from the outset, he made his intentions known aboard the YZ250F. While his more experienced rivals took time to adapt to the combination of open trails and super-tight special tests, Milner was gone. Yes, he had a home-ground advantage and, yes, his 250 suited the slick conditions, but Doogie’s 2012 A4DE ride was something very special and all the blokes squabbling for second Outright knew it. He won the first three days convincingly and, with a 90-second buffer to help settle is Day 4 nerves, his final moto win was the cherry on a very sweet 4-Day pie. The knockabout bloke was a popular winner – with riders and spectators alike – and he led the post-presso revelry in Warragul with more than a little enthusiasm. At 21, Milner was the fourth youngest rider to ever win the 4-Day outright (behind 18-year-old Mark Avard and 20-year-olds, Shane Watts and Ben Grabham), and the first guy to win on a 250F for … well, a damn long time!

TWO – Ballard Bows Out

After 24 years of running race teams (for Honda and then Yamaha during the past 14 years), the mercurial Geoff Ballard hung up his Team Manager boots after the Warragul 4-Day. Having recognised, mentored and developed the cream of Australia’s off-road talent during that time, Ballard was philosophical about his departure from the job when he spoke at the presentation dinner, but assured everyone he’d still be part of the race scene in one way or another. And how fitting it was that, in his managerial swansong, Ballard’s Yamaha team took the Outright win (Milner), two class wins (Milner in E1, Matt Phillips in E2) and a second (Stefan Merriman in E3). Ballard leaves an indelible legacy in the sport and is owed a great debt of gratitude by many.

THREE – The Comical Matt Phillips

It’s hard to put your finger on it, but there’s something very quirky and amusing about the way young MP72 wanders aimlessly onto the presso stage and engages with an audience. By the time he’d grumbled something profound (such as “yeah”) into the mic and then stood back to collect his thoughts, the crowd was already sniggering. And with a few sherbets on board, he made some classic speeches. But even Phillips’ trademark dry humour couldn’t mask the fact that he had a disappointing event. Sure, he rode the wheels off his bike in the final moto and finally clawed his way ahead of Glenn Kearney for the E2 class-win (his second 4-Day class-win), but a series of untimely crashes and niggling bike issues on the first two days put the 19-year-old talent well out of contention for the Outright win he so desperately wanted. When we stopped counting, Phillips publically praised Yamaha’s WR450F 27 times at the presso – it was almost as if he was filling a quota or undoing previous indiscretions.

FOUR – The DSE Downer

Access to useable land for an event like the A4DE is never easy, and Victoria’s Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) certainly made organisers jump through plenty of hoops this year. Trails that are regularly used legally by weekend trailriders were suddenly branded off-limits by the DSE – often just a day or two ahead of their intended use for the event – which meant that organisers were left little choice but to replace much of the transport sections’ singletrail with long stretches of boring fireroad and bitumen. Toby Price was about the only rider celebrating this, as it gave the bloke’s busted ribs some respite during the 200km-plus days.

FIVE – ISDE Acknowledgement

With Australia’s off-road scene still buzzing in the wake of Team Australia’s historic second place in the German ISDE, it was fitting that the team representatives were all called to stage at the 4-Day presso while ISDE Team Manager, Don Atkins, spoke about their prodigious efforts. Glenn Kearney – who has now assumed the role of elder statesman for the Aussie ISDE team – also spoke passionately about the team spirit, teamwork and success of the boys this year in Germany.

SIX – Sanders’ Mullet

Not everyone knew a lot about this young bloke, but the Victorians weren’t at all surprised by his speed at the 4-Day. Daniel Sanders regularly placed third behind Price and Merriman in the E3 class, and finished a very credible ninth Outright. To top off the event, the son of local enduro great (Peter, who was unbeatable in the wet back in his day) auctioned off his scraggly mullet at the presso to help raise money for cancer. Thankfully someone upped the $200 bid for Sanders to keep the mullet with a $300 bid to cut it off. Matt Phillips did the honours on-stage with a pair of scissors so blunt, it looked like he was hacking Sanders’ blond locks off with a bread knife. Sanders also won the Stefan Merriman Award, which acknowledges the event’s standout privateer rider, while the auction raised over $3000.

SEVEN – Price’s Pain Threshold

An outsider could be forgiven for thinking Toby Price had his left hand sewn onto his rig cage all week because, aside from when he was hanging onto his handlebars, the reigning 4-Day champ was continually grasping at the source of his crippling pain. How the hell he raced and changed tyres for four days with busted ribs was beyond belief, end even Victoria’s die-hard enduro crew were astounded by his determination to not only keep going, but to win the E3 class and place second Outright. Even KTM Team Manager, Brad Williscroft, reminded Pricey on a daily basis that they’d totally understand if he pulled out of the event. And here’s something few of you will know: as we were heading out of Warragul at 6.30am on Sunday, en route to the MotoGP, a familiar figure – a bloke in an orange pit shirt, still clutching at his ribs – was walking backwards up the Warragul freeway exit. Why? Word is that, after a big night on the town, Price went back to Daniel Milner’s place for a few cleansers in the wee hours, and then walked back to Warragul … 15km away! Seriously, what does it take to placate this animal?

EIGHT – Surprise Pit Posse

The appearance of CDR Yamaha team principal, Craig Dack, and WEM’s Kevin Williams in the 4-Day’s Parc Ferme on Day 2 set tongues wagging, as pundits pondered why a national MX/SX team manager and the MX Nats promoters would be sniffing around the event. Williams had a legit alibi – he lives not far from Warragul. But Dack? Well, the talk on the street is that the four-time Mister Motocross winner and owner of Australia’s most successful race team in history will be heavily involved in the new-look Yamaha off-road team for 2013. Dack couldn’t be drawn to comment about the rumours. Yamaha’s Managing Director, Steven Cotterell, also remained circumspect, saying simply that, “We’re yet to finalise the structure and personnel for our national off-road team next year.”

NINE – Salvini’s Interrupted Interview

The Warragul event was Alex Salvini’s second trip to Oz for the 4-Day, and the bloke clearly loves the country … and the hospitality the cosmopolitan Husqvarna Racing Team again extended to the Italian and his partner – who plan to holiday in Oz for 10 days after the 4-Day. As we were interviewing Salvini towards the end of the presentation night, the heckling from the crew in his Husky posse (who’d all had a few by this stage) was priceless. As they hollered bastardised Italian phrases such as, “eh, Luigi … fungula” from backstage, it was all Salvini could do not to fall over with laughter.

TEN – General GK’s Guts

Toby Price’s result at the ISDE with busted ribs kind of distracted attention from the gusty performance of Glenn Kearney, who rode the last three days of the event with an enormous gash is his knee. And the same thing happened again a few weeks later at the A4DE in Oz. As always, the quietly spoken Kearney just went about his business, despite the fact his knee was nowhere near 100%, and he damn near won the E2 class. It was only Matt Phillips’ blistering final moto that reversed GK’s narrow lead in the class. Still, the gutsy 31-year-old ran a very close second to Phillips – both in the final moto and the class results – and posted an impressive sixth Outright. It topped off a solid showing from the ever-improving Team Husqvarna effort in the Aussie off-road scene.

ELEVEN – The Recovery-Off

At the elite level of the sport these days, sport psychology and physiology plays a key role in athletes’ performance. A couple of years back, the KTM team stepped it up by signing on sports physiology guy, Tim Cole, and having him travel with the riders to every event with a wheelie-bin that doubled as an ice-filled recovery bath. Not to be outdone at Warragul, Yamaha set up a marquee in the Parc Ferme that looked like a recovery clinic, complete with $10,000 worth of temperature-controlled dipping pools. It was used by a bunch of Yamaha’s riders to purge their bodies of lactic acid and expedite recovery, but by the time Jess Gardiner made her way there, the water was a putrid shade of scunge.

TWELVE – Phillip Island

What a stroke of genius that the Phillip Island MotoGP (home also to the second round of the Australian Supercross Championship) was just 90 minutes’ drive away from the Warragul event. Sadly, however, the 4-Day’s final moto and the Phillip Island Supercross round were staged concurrently, which meant we had to split our photography and videography resources on the Saturday. Then again, the proximity of the two events meant we could hot-tail it back to Warragul on Saturday night after the supercross for what was a very amusing 4-Day presentation evening.