The A4DE: Birth Of An Icon

Prior to the inception of the Australian Off-Road Championship (AORC) in 2005 (which was actually called the National Off-Road Series until MA officially granted it ‘championship’ status in 2007), the greater majority of enduro racing in Australia took place through state-based events. Believe it or not, the Australian 4-Day Enduro (A4DE) gave Australia’s enduro riders the one and only opportunity to compete against each other on the national stage. Now, on the eve of the 39^th uninterrupted annual running of the A4DE, we thought it’d be nice to reflect on the foundations of this iconic event. To shed some light on the 4-Day’s heritage, here’s an excerpt of the feature article we ran on the 2010 4-Day in Transmoto’s very first issue:

In 1977, the first team Australia ever sent to the International Six-Days Enduro (ISDE) returned from Czechoslovakia with their tails between their legs, having posted a 100% DNF-rate. It was damn tough ISDE that year, but the result remained an embarrassment to Australia’s proud off-road fraternity, and it gave the Cessnock Motorcycle Club an idea: to create an event back home that’d prepare our riders and support crews for the notoriously torrid ISDE. And that’s how the Australian 4-Day Enduro (A4DE) was conceived and born – in Cessnock, over the Easter holiday break of 1978. Of the 125 riders who entered, just 43 completed the saturated course, with Victoria’s Norm Watts – father of former EWC and GNCC champ, Shane – the inaugural winner.

The “4-Day”, as it became affectionately known, has been a regular fixture on the off-road race calendar ever since, and is regarded as Australia’s premier off-road event. Back in the ’80s, it attracted international greats such as America’s Dick Burleson and Europe’s Joachim Sauer and Sven-Eric Jonsson, with Mika Ahola, Juha Salminen, David Knight, Joel Smets and Antoine Meo all competing in more recent years. And Australia’s Shane Watts, Glenn Kearney, Stefan Merriman, Jake Stapleton, Josh Strang and Matthew Phillips have all made a point of returning from their EWC or GNCC gigs to race the thing.

Widely regarded as the doyen of Australia’s off-road scene, the late John Hall spoke to Transmoto’s Andy Wigan about his recollections of the A4DE’s conception back in 1978. Sadly, John died just two months after this interview was filmed.