Better in than out: WHES Round 4

You really have to ask yourself: why would you?

And if you do know why, would you?

The B & B Offroad Quindanning Clash, Round 4 on the W.A. Hard Enduro Series calendar, took a lot of people by surprise!

Disturbingly, a lot of people surprised themselves, and others, by demonstrating exactly what they are prepared to do to get what they really REALLY need out of a WHES round.

But, at the end of a crap day for most, it really was a case of "better in than out".

Kal West squeezes one out in the rocks.

When Chief Track Marker, Jakob Petrig sent me the files to create the maps for Quinny and I immediately thought "If it is in Williams (W.A.) it was going to be flatter than a cow pat and faster than a trip to the dunny after a dodgy vindaloo".

I could not have been more wrong! Even the gladiator, Kal West could not find enough swear words to express his feelings post-race. It was a hard track.

In the bog hole! Tom Lilly said it was a "steaming 30+ wiper"

From Gold class regular, Tom Lilly "Couple of bits were super difficult; had to team up. It was mostly just wet slippery football sized rocks that made it frustrating, couldn’t get a flow going at all, which couldn’t really be helped, I guess? Another horrible day..........can’t wait to do it again"

And to make things more interesting, WHES even got a wild card! Chris Vieghofer popped over from Austria to stir the bowl, and he was going faster than a blue flame early in the race.

Unfortunately, he flamed out pretty promptly with a busted bike, but not before he had given the locals something serious to digest.

The gentle giant, Harris Baxter-Green, gives the Austrian some Aussie insight on how to get a clean break.

"I was leading for two laps and for sure did the fastest lap. There was one obstacle I wasn't able to ride alone so I waited like 10 min for another rider and lost my gap. After that I made a mistake and broke my front brake, so it wasn't possible to race on. It was a cool race and a BIG trip for me"

From a 5 times front row starter at Erzeberg, that certainly says something about the quality of WHES tracks and our very own West Aussie series.

International wildcard Chris Vieghofer got his clean break early.

When the local lads left the Austrian in the stalls, the fun really started.

On the Friday before the race, I was with Jakob Petrig and 2025 Gold Class champion Chase Lardner. They looked like a couple of terriers that had eaten rat bait, and we all knew they would struggle to make it past the can.

Cam Hegarty is clearly a folder not scruncher!

Jakob got away early, then had starter issues. He had to resort to the ol' hotwire and hope trick, before it all went down the toilet and he lost his rear brake. As soon as the Jackal faded, Boston King and Chase caught him up.

Then the bowels took a twist for Chase when he popped his chain. It got jammed in the swing arm. Boston and Petrig saw him on the wrong side of the tape with the axle out and thought that was him done.

At the end of the fourth lap the two front runners had had enough and were about to call time of death. But Chase had blood in his eyes, and he was not ready to quit; despite pushing himself to the point of nearly puking in his lid.

He managed to keep it all in and passed Boston parked up at the timing tent. Boston clicked down one and shot off on the 'Chase', which led to a shit-storm of a last lap where the lead changed over and over.

Chase finally got him on the very last hill to take the flag and his place on the porcelain throne.

Better in than out, Chase Lardner kept it together to take P1 in Gold.

I don't know how, but somehow WHES managed to find every single topographical anomaly in the Williams region to create a 6 km track that had me very glad I sat this one out.

To get the best understanding of just how hard it was it is sometimes better to ask some of the more colourful and less politically correct characters further down the starting grid.

I asked Bronze stallwart, Jason Ferguson "Exactly what sort of shit mixer was it out there?"

Make no mistake though, the Bronze, Iron, Women and Juniors all gave as good as they got with some in the lower ranks going through the motions and punching out some real nuggety riding.

Bronze getting a good wipe on some things that were just plain hard to pass.

Jump on the WHES FB page to see a quality 3-ply roll of race results, because it certainly was an incredibly steaming pile of less than fresh faces that finally made it up onto the podium.

Stephen King pushed a wedge between Grant McCarthy and Andrew Lardner in Iron Class.

Darcy Cleveland squeezed one out over Jett Pike and James Filear and, continuing the dream, Hayden McLean popped out a winner on possibly the most brutal Bronze event this year.

Hayden McLean with a well-earned first in Bronze, over Luke Patane and Lylle Johnson.

FINALLY, circling back around to the question of why would you?

Well, if you thought the obstacles on the Quinny Clash track were challenging spare a thought for just how challenging it was for poor James Filear trying to fish a spectators iPhone out of the women's porta potty!!!

Yes...she did.

And no, he did not.