Gray Dick (Bavarian Motorcycles BMW G450X) finished a hard-earned fourth overall while team-mate Wynand Delport made up 15 places to place 11th in the inaugural Grass Factory & Eco Organics 400, fifth round of the national motorcycle and quad off road championships in the Brits area of North West Province last weekend.The 400-km event took its toll on the 360 bike and quad riders entered in the 21 motorcycle and 17 quad classes and the two BMW riders did well to complete the gruelling course without major mishap after more than seven and a half hours in the saddle.
Dick got his weekend off to a good start with fourth overall in Friday's 42-km time trial that determined the start positions for Saturday's 354-km race. He was enjoying a clean run and lying third behind Riaan van Niekerk (KTM) after overtaking Lourens Mahoney (Yamaha), who had crashed into a fence while leading, when his brakes worked loose. He stopped to make repairs and was overtaken by Bollie van Rooyen (Kawasaki) and Wade Blaauw (Yamaha). He managed to haul in Blaauw before the finish in Brits to finish fourth behind time-trial winner Jade Gutzeit (Yamaha), Van Rooyen and Van Niekerk.
"It was a great race. The route was very good and quite tough and included some well-ridden areas that weekend riders are familiar with, including Three Fences and Long Rocks. I would like to have done better than third in the Open class, but I have to be reasonably satisfied. It was my best result of the year so far," said Dick.
Delport commented: "I didn't have a good time trial and this had a knock-on effect on my race. I thought I'd ridden well, but my time didn't show this. Starting 26th turned out to be a big disadvantage in the dry and dusty conditions. Getting through the field was a major challenge and I had to be careful when overtaking. The dust was a big problem. You could catch the person in front but getting past was not so easy. You don't want to hit a rock or some other obstacle when you're riding at 120 km/h in the bush."
About halfway through Saturday's race he realised he had enough fuel to skip the next refuel stop and this allowed him to make up a couple of extra places before the finish.
"I'd like to have finished in the top 10, but I guess I'm reasonably happy with 11th after starting 26th. It was a tough race - we rode for over seven hours - and I knew I'd have to pace myself. I felt good throughout and the BMW never gave me any trouble."
The sixth and final round of the championship, the Koue Bokkeveld 400, takes place in the Ceres area of the Western Cape on October 1 and 2.
