SA’s Young, Green, Moore, Teasdale and Landman all make their mark…
Romania. Saturday 27 July.
Perfect conditions in Sibiu for the Offroad Day 4 of Red Bull Romaniacs. After a week of what competitors are calling the most challenging Romaniacs yet, it was Mani Lettenbichler who took the victory, his fifth win in a row at Romaniacs and his third win in the FIM World Hard Enduro Championship series.
The Limitless Edition 21 of Red Bull Romaniacs is considered the toughest one yet. The challenges just kept coming. The overnight marathon stage added extra pressure to the competitors who had to spend time maintaining and cleaning their bikes with no assistance and starting out the next day with tyres from the day before.
The Gold Class would end up covering 586 km during the four days and the top guns were on their bikes 24 hours upwards in total.
The Hillclimb Arena was the final showpiece, one extreme hill after another and an optional ramp to jump or concrete barriers to ride over followed by some of Andy Fazekas’ dreaded tyres of all sizes, before final crossing through the Red Bull finishing arch. Gold Class made light work of the finish but it wasn’t quite as easy for other amateur competitors who gave the thousands of spectators a better idea of the actual pitch and difficulty.
Offroad Day 4 was jam packed with one technical section after another, up and downhill sections with little chance in between to recover. Signature sections of the day were endless and kept being thrown at the top level competitors. Names like “The Revenge”, “Momentum”, “Ass slide”, “Steroid”, “Flying Ford”, “Hug the tree” and the well known “Wolf’s Nest” were all present.
After seizing the lead on off road Day 1, the KTM 300 EXC racer maintained his sizeable advantage for the remainder of the event to take the overall win by over 33 minutes.
Yup… Read that again…
This victory marks the German’s third win of the 2024 Hard Enduro season, after missing round three due to injury.
He’s also closer to Graham Jarvis’ all-time record seven Romaniacs victories.
When Lettenbichler set out on the tracks at 07:38 he knew that he had an overall lead of 40m45s, 28 minutes of which was from Offroad Day 1. With that in mind Lettenbichler knew he didn’t need to take any unnecessary risks and he pushed through the technical sections of the day.
While Mani cruised to a fifth consecutive Romaniacs victory on day four in Romania, the Sherco Racing duo Teo Kabakchiev and Mario Roman grabbed most the attention fighting it out for the podium right to the final hillclimbs.
The real nail biter was between the two Sherco riders Mario Roman and Teo Kabakchiev who after 3 days in the Romanian wilderness were only separated by 1m15s. The battle was on and both riders gave it their all. It was Kabakchiev who raced the fastest times of the day pushed back up into second position by just three minutes. He celebrates his third time on the Romaniacs podium.
Despite giving it his all, flying through the tough signature sections and arriving at the Hillclimbs finish arena first, Roman wasn’t quite able to beat Kabachiev’s times taking home his third, third place at the Red Bull Romaniacs.
No-one could accuse these guys of not giving it everything right to the end and, after the results shuffled and some protesting, it was Kabakchiev who finishes second and Roman (rather than the other way around as originally recorded on time sheets). Either way it was an historic result for Sherco.
Mani Lettenbichler: “Not too bad a day, I’m pretty tired, the last 3 days I have to admit I was struggling, I found some last bits of energy to push to the finish, I am super stoked with a fifth win at Red Bull Romaniacs”
Teo Kabachiev: “It was an intense day, Mario was pushing a lot to get second overall. Mani makes his gap in the super technical sections. I’m improving in this area but it’s step by step and I’ll improve. I’m really happy with my performance”
Mario Roman “It was really tough, especially on days three and four. The level increased and we suffered a lot but I’m super happy to be fighting for the top positions. I rode a lot on my own today. I think Teo is still ahead of me. Maybe the toughest year ever, it was super technical”
It was Wade Young and Michael Walkner who would be included in the top five fastest competitors in the Gold field. Wade wasn’t able to get the result that he needed to stay at the top of the FIM World Hard Enduro Championship ranking but after four days out on the Romaniacs tracks he placed third on both Day 1 and Day 3 and finished Edition 21 in fourth position.
Wade loses the championship lead after a fourth-place finish but it remains close and he, Lettenbichler and Roman are all still in it to win it as they head to the Tennessee Knockout in a few weeks.
Michael Walkner put in a stellar performance and held his own with the top guns placing fifth overall and proving that he has what it takes to be up there with the leaders in extreme hard enduro.
The Offroad Day 1 +2 Best Of clip of the RB Romaniacs 2024
Mitch Brightmore put on a full throttle performance again and had a great first edition of Red Bull Romaniacs, finishing in position 6 after the longest, and in parts, toughest race he has ever competed in and reinforcing his lead at the top of the Junior World Hard Enduro Championship series. His brother Ashton crossed the finish line in 11th position with fellow Junior Championship competitors Suff Sella in position 12 and SA’s James Moore 13th.
In the Silver Class, the top three competitors started out with only two minutes between them. The same three competitors had been juggling their positions all week… It was the young Hungarian competitor Kornel Ott who would race to the finish first followed by the veteran Chris Birch (NZL), whose first Gold podium was when he placed third in 2007, giving an idea of the difference between the two competitors, and Patrick Riegler who placed third.
Pol Tarres put on a show, he piloted his Tenere’ through Silver Class tracks for 4 days, making him the first competitor ever to complete Silver Class on a Ténéré 700.
Sandra Gomez had a good overall result finishing in position 25. Previously Sandra Gomez was the only female to ever finish in Gold Class and one of two females to finish in Silver Class this year, Kirsten Landman finished in position 97.
In Bronze Class it was Kevin Gallas who achieved an outstanding result and won on his Ténéré 700 after placing third in the Prolog and then completing four Off-road Days on the bike.
He was 9m21s ahead of second position, Josh Kirby and 21m38s ahead of third position, David Ignat.
Iron Class saw Greek competitor Dhmhtrhs Margos take the win, followed by Peter Wuth with and Konstantinos Dimitriou in third place. Polands Dawid Szczotka was just 44 minutes behind also competing on a Ténéré 700, finishing in fifth position.
The Atom Class was dominated every day by Alexander Petroiu who claimed the win, followed by Valentin Ganea and Dmitriy Reznitskiy.
The Offroad Day 3 +4 Best Of clip of the RB Romaniacs 2024
Romaniacs Main Man Martin Freinademetz:
“We are all very proud to have the year where there are the most nations participating, 64 nations, a huge amount. We also had the hardest day ever in Romaniacs on Offroad Day 1, of course the weather contributed to that, it’s all part of racing. We have seen increased viewer numbers and a lot of good feedback about the LEATT LIVEmaniacs and we look forward to continuing and improving this LIVE transmission. In terms of the riders, Mani has been dominating for a while and we are happy to see him take his fifth win. We are seeing some new stars coming forward which is really important for the sport so it was good to see the newcomers do so well. It was also positive for the sport to see so many FIM World Hard Enduro Championship Junior competitors. It was good to see Jonny Walker back, too bad he got hurt and also to see Graham Jarvis out there racing, he is still without doubt very, very good as we saw on Day 1 and it was sad he had to pull out due to his broken ribs only three weeks prior. I would also like to thank all our amateur competitors who make this event what it is.”
Provisional Results – 2024 Red Bull Romaniacs. 22 Gold Finishers.
- Manuel Lettenbichler (GER), KTM
- Teodor Kabakchiev (BGR), Sherco
- Mario Roman (ESP), Sherco,
- Wade Young (RSA), GASGAS
- Michael Walkner (AUT), GASGAS
- Mitch Brightmore
- Sonny Goggia
- Alfredo Gomez
- Matthew Green
James Moore, 13th, Travis Teasdale, 16th.
Provisional standings – FIM Hard Enduro World Championship (after 4 of 7 rounds)
- Manuel Lettenbichler (GER), KTM, 67 pts
- Wade Young (RSA), GASGAS, 62 pts
- Mario Roman (ESP), Sherco, 62 pts
- Teodor Kabakchiev (BUL), Sherco, 57 pts
- Mitch Brightmore (GBR), Husqvarna, 50 pts
