July 26, 2006

Enduro GP: SCOTT Riders close to World title

SCOTT Teamriders David Knight (E3) and Ivan Cervantes (E1) won in each class the Enduro World Championship race in Hancock, U.S. this past weekend. Samuli Aro (E2) finished 2nd overall in Hancock but is still leading the GP Series by 28 points. Two more races (Slovakia and France) are left for this season. Knight and Cervantes get closer to their second world title on FIM World Enduro Championship.



On day one of the GP of the USA, weather conditions became worse than they have at any previous round of the ’06 WEC series. Starting off relatively dry, the heavens opened up shortly before the mid-way stage of the day and a near two-hour torrential downpour resulted in conditions becoming extremely difficult for all competitors. The relentless rainfall thankfully eased shortly before the start of the third and final lap but left the three special tests waterlogged. Undeterred, Knight revelled in the ‘British’ conditions and posted the fastest E3 class times on each of the opening day’s eight special tests.

With conditions drier on day two, they also became rougher and the enduro, motocross and extreme tests saw several riders fall during the course of the day.

David Knight: “It’s been another great weekend. Everything went pretty much to plan, winning on both days is what I wanted to do and now I have a really good lead in the E3 world championship. I might even be able to wrap up the title at the next round of the championship in Slovakia now, which would be great.

“Day one went really well, the first lap was ok but quite slippery. The second lap was horrendous because of the rain, it absolutely chucked it down but the rocky sections actually got grippier. The motocross tests got really cut up but it was great fun because of all the ruts. It wasn’t a hard day, it was quite enjoyable. I had one crash on the going but nothing in the tests. It was hard to open up a really big gap over second because the tests were quite easy and not that rough.

“It was certainly rough on day two. It was amazing how much the tests dried up after the rain we had on day two. The enduro test was really hard work on day two because of the rocks and tree roots. I just tried to do what I did on day one – push pretty hard without making any mistakes. The tests got really rough on the second lap. I knew I had a good lead going into the last lap so I just had some fun.”



Point standings – World Enduro Championship 2006
Enduro 3 class
1. David Knight, SCOTT - 300pts
2. Seb Guillaume - 233pts
3. Bjorne Carlsson - 220pts
4. Marko Tarkkala, SCOTT - 216pts


Point standings – World Enduro Championship 2006
Enduro 2 class
1. Samuli Aro, SCOTT - 275pts
2. Mika Ahola - 247pts
3. Stefan Merriman - 231pts
5. Fabien Planet, SCOTT - 171pts


Point standings – World Enduro Championship 2006
Enduro 1 class
1. Ivan Cervantes, SCOTT - 288pts
2. Simone Albergoni - 254pts
3. Ales Belometti - 212pts