The Sprint Enduro at Burnt River was cool. Talk to anyone who was there or read anything about it and you already know the score. Yes, some riders whined about busting up their bikes, but all of them emerged as both tougher and better riders. We talked to organizer Matt McAnanama and enduro veteran Bruce Moffatt about the event and what the future may hold for this style of racing.

www.offroadmotorcycles.ca The first thing to ask you, from a promoter’s point of view, was round-one of the DirtyBikes Sprint Enduro Championship a success?

Matt McAnanama : It depends on how you measure success. If it’s all about rider count, then no, but personally when I run an event I focus on who comes out rather than who didn’t. I made sure during the event that I talked to every rider after each lap to find out what they liked and didn’t like about the course. For this event it was more about gauging reaction, and I was very impressed with all the positive responses and also the fact that the vast majority of the riders, even when given the opportunity to bypass the hardest parts of the extreme test, took it on! It wasn’t exactly ideal conditions for traction, especially on that type of course, but the riders jumped right in.

The Extreme test at DirtyBikes Sprint Enduro One took guts, but most importantly, concentration.

Matt: About 10AM when we were setting up and it was raining and everything was flooded a couple riders asked it the event would be cancelled. The first thing I thought was ‘No way!” Even if I lose money or whatever, there’s no way I’d cancel a race when people drove three hours in the rain to come and race an all-new event. Why would I cancel it? At the end of the day I look at this as a perfect test for this kind of event. We had a very wide range of skill levels competing; pretty much every class had a few riders in it. From Novices up to Veterans like Bruce Moffatt, who’ve been around and raced at places like Corner Grass, then guys like Wojo and Cockyane who are trying to get better to become champions…I had an awesome focus group. I’d ask them what is your opinion, what did you hate, what did you love? From that perspective, this first Sprint race was a huge success!

Bruce Moffat has been to Alberta and seen first hand why those Corner Grass guys rip. He’s glad this type of racing has finally come to Ontario.

A lot of riders I talked to, well when they first went in there it was wet and slippery and they were downright spooked. Visibly spooked. But they had the guts to do it. They flopped around all over the place but by the end of the day they were getting around it all right! Over the course of the day you could actually see their riding skills improving, noticeably, lap by lap. The calibre of those guys, in one day, jumped up how many notches? If they’d ridden a hare scramble they’d be at the same level at the end of the day, but at your race they learned a whole bunch of new skills. And I guess that was your whole point of creating this series, to elevate the skills of Canadian riders.

Matt: Exactly! The quote of the day that stuck in my head was from Wojo, after the third lap or something. I was talking to him and he said, “I’ve learned more in one lap here than I’d learn in a year of hare scrambles.” What he meant was he learned that the course was difficult enough to challenge him, far beyond what he’d see in a hare scramble. He learned techniques and how to do them fast, in competition, rather than practicing in your backyard. That’s a huge difference. When the pressure is on you push yourself to do things you wouldn’t normally do. His comment really stuck in my head.

Machine Racing/Yamaha’s Adam Millson chased teammate Brian Wojnarowski at Sprint Enduro One. It was Wojo’s trials experience that made the difference and put him on the top of the podium.

Ya, you should have seen Wojo on Sunday riding across that nest of logs during the cross country race.

Matt: I challenged him before the Sprint Enduro, saying “I want to see if you can ride across the tops of those logs,” He said, “No way am I going to try that in the Sprint! But maybe I’ll try it later.” He went out and practiced it after the race, then did it during the cross-country on Sunday. It was awesome! It’s important to me for guys like John Nelson and Machine Racing to sponsor the series. They’ve been around a long time, and for them to go full on to support a brand new series really says something. It’s a big risk. I also want to thank the Greenlaws and Burnt River Off Road Vehicle Facility for creating the Endurocross-style section. Their goal is to use it not just for events but for training. Burnt River isn’t just motocross, it’s an off-road facility. When the fastest growing segment of the sport is this Endurocross stuff it’s great that they are jumping in with both feet!

The other parts of the Sprint course, like that gravel motocross track, they were really cool too…

Matt: They actually built that for rally car racing. It’s too bad it rained, because I rode that Cross test on Friday night before it rained and it was one of the most fun times I’ve had. Traction was perfect, there were little jumps here and there…but weather is weather. You can’t control it.

At a Sprint Enduro you’ve got to have the stones to ride at 100 percent. Offroadmotorcycles test rider Matt McCarthy cranked it up to 110 percent on his way to second in the Jr. Class.

Matt: The next round, being Wingham August 21, will have a little different focus. The Cross test will be the big thing in Wingham. We have a GP-style motocross track that also runs into a natural terrain grass track. So we’ll have real jumps, but also that Euro style grass track in the hay field and an awesome extreme test. Burnt River was all about the Extreme test, but we want to show with the Sprint Series that the other tests are important too. Wingham will focus on the Cross test, which will be front and center for spectators. Our goal is to have each test very easy to access for spectators.

I think that’s what will really help grow this series in the future. Just about any club can scrape together enough land to run a Sprint Enduro, spectators love it, riders love it and the industry loves it. It’s a struggle to find the land to run a hare scramble, let alone an enduro, but what you are doing is relatively easy to find space for. I remember as a kid our club, Niagara Timberline Riders, used to have these five lap poker runs with all sorts of crazy terrain changes and a timed, full-on lap six. The ball busting would go on all season between the motocrossers and enduro guys and trail riders, but on lap six the B.S stopped and everyone would ride absolutely wild to earn ‘fastest lap’ bragging rights. It was crazy, it was fun and everyone around with a dirt bike showed up and loved it! Every time. I did ‘ok’ a few times and am more proud of those club medals than anything else on my shelf. The club even bred a bunch of National Enduro Champions over the years because of stuff like that. You’ve taken that same kind of concept, creating an event to find the best overall rider, and taken it to a very professional level!

Matt: Yup. I think for attracting younger riders and even older MX guys, riders who have the fire to do something and to go balls out for 20 minutes, Sprint is the future. Our goal is to have our own weekends, where we can run six laps instead of four, maybe with even less rest between laps. That’s where the enduro part comes in and that’s our goal. For our trial year we didn’t want to exhaust the guys who’d be racing the WEC Cross Country the very next day. The key now is to get the word out. I am starting to realize now how important it is to get the word out through websites like www.offroadmotocycles.ca and forums like www.dirtybikes.ca and word of mouth. There is nothing better than riders saying to their friends, “I loved this event! You’ve got to come out and try it!”

Many local clubs, like Timberline, have had a similar idea to Sprint Enduro in mind for decades; A full-on, no excuses blast to find the very best all-around rider. Here’s an old photo of a very young Eric Young pinning it in a timed-lap at a Timberline event. DirtyBikes took that basic concept, mixed it in with what’s been successful in the rest of the world and came out with the most interesting form of racing Ontario has yet seen.

Matt: With the three different disciplines Sprint obviously awards the best, most well rounded rider. But even if you don’t have all the skill sets you can still be competitive. A motocrosser could come out and kill it on the Cross test while they build their ability in the Extreme and Enduro tests. So our is aim to attract riders of all disciplines. The enduro guys might be faster in this part, motocrossers over here, trials riders here…everyone can find something at a Sprint race they excel at!