The heat at the Hard Enduro World Championship 2023 season moved to Eisenerz, Austria, for Rd2 the Erzberg Rodeo 2023, aka “The Iron Giant”.
Racing week started with two heats of Iron Road Prologue on Friday and Saturday during which more than 1200 riders hit the ridiculously fast track and tried to set the best time possible. The only surprise was that Graham Jarvis couldn’t make it to the first row and had to start with second fifty.
At 12:00 sharp first row took start and roared into the mine for Hare Scramble. Main race was a 35km single track in and around the Iron Giant for all 500 riders who are qualified to race it and they had 4h to reach to the finish line.
Billy Bolt had a heartbreaking crash at the first hill and lost almost all places which meant a great work of recovery ahead of him. It was Enduro GP’s Andrea Verona with his 4T Gas Gas Factory who led the early stages with tiny margins against KTM’s Trystan Hart and Manuel Lettenbichler. Verona lost against hard enduro challenger as the race started to get gnarly but it was a great experience for him especially with a huge win over Iron Road Prologue.
Way back at the track Billy started gaining positions really quick and caught the leading group after a little more than 20 mins into the race. From then on P1 went back and forth between Billy Bolt and Mani Lettenbichler but the Brit managed to grip on it before the Carl’s Dinner and stretched his lead over 5 minutes against Mani.
Erzberg Rodeo 2022’s newly introduced sector Motorex Highway was ahead and Billy was the first one show up. Being a tricky forest sector with a very technical hill, it was the riskiest tackle between Billy and his first ever Erzberg Rodeo win. Not only Bolt failed to get through and lost all the advantage against Letti but also had to watch Letti getting away smooth.
From then on, the title defender German didn’t make any mistake and brought a second win at the Erzberg Rodeo and stretched his lead over Billy at the Championship standings. Billy came in second with a long face because he had the chance but over all it was his best ever Erzberg finish. It was North America’s rising star Trystan Hart who completed the podium for the year 2023 at the Iron Giant.
Last years P2 Mario Roman had to retire from the race due to a serious crash resulted with severe injuries. The Spaniard tried to continue but the pain was to much to bear.
The Prologue’s unluckiest contender Graham Jarvis finished the race with a huge P6 after starting with the second row.
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Erzberg Rodeo 2023 Finishers
1 Manuel Lettenbichler - 02:31:15
2 Billy Bolt GB - 02:42:15
3 Trystan Hart - 02:57:09
4 Jonny Walker - 02:59:30
5 Wade Young - 03:04:21
6 Graham Jarvis - 03:13:55
7 Michael Walkner - 03:22:18
8 Alfredo Gomez Cantero - 03:24:30
9 Teodor Kabakchiev - 03:25:50
10 Cody Webb - 03:29:09
11 Matthew Green - 03:31:45
12 Sonny Goggia - 03:49:21
13 Dominik Olszowy - 03:51:59
14 Jack Price - 03:52:08
15 Dan Peace - 03:55:58
16 Mitch Brightmore - 03:58:39
17 Will Hoare - 03:59:13
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