Pietermaritzburg hero Travis Teasdale turned the South African Cross Country Motorcycle Championship status quo on its head when he rode his TT Racing Gas Gas to victory in a rough, tough and muddy Jolivet, KwaZulu Natal season opener in his back yard on Saturday. Open class lad Teasdale beat reigning champions Brad Cox’s OR2-winning Brother Leader Tread KTM and OR1 rival Brett Swanepoel’s Rockstar Energy Husqvarna overall.
“What a day!” a delighted Travis admitted. “250 kilometres of racing in five hours with a win in the time trial and overall victory in the main event.” Teasdale beat Cox by three and a half minutes, while Swanepoel was a further 37 seconds adrift. Another OR1 privateer, Scott Bouverie’s Gas Gas was fourth overall from Jarryd Coetzee’s Brother Leader Tread KTM and OR3 winner Davin Cocker on a Rockstar Energy Husqvarna.
Teasdale took OR1 from Swanepoel, Bouverie and Coetzee, with D’art Lobjoit a fine fifth on the Pepson Plastics Kawasaki Motul team’s national debut and Hayden Louw sixth. Cox beat Ian Rall’s MCA Dragon Husqvarna in quarter-litre OR2, where Kerim Fitz-Gerald’s Red Bull KTM and Kyle Eggar on a Roost KTM were third and fourth.
Cocker and Heygate beat Dylan Cox’s RBS Yamaha and KTM Durban duo Haydn Cole and Stefan van Deventer in OR3, with Matthew Wilson’s MCA Husqvarna and Taki Bogaiges’ Pepson Kawasaki next up. KTM Durban rider Dylan Jones took High School honours in a comfortable four and a half minute victory over Damon Cox on an RBS Yamaha and Franchise Co. CIT Husqvarna kid John Botha.
Wade Blaauw picked up where he left off with an emphatic Seniors win aboard his Roost KTM, with Deon du Toit second on his Franchise Co. CIT Husqvarna and a happy Pepson Plastics Kawasaki Motul stand-in Achim Bergman third. Husqvarna rider Greg Naim took the Masters win from Wayne Farmer, who overcame a tummy bug to end second on his Biker’s Warehouse Husqvarna and Carel ‘Mieleies’ Le Roux on an Alfie Cox KTM.
The second round of the 2021 South African Cross Country Championship happens on Saturday 27 March at Modimole. You may remember that as Nylstroom.
