Herfoss: Team Tactics
Suzuki's Supersport rookie Troy Herfoss checks in after Queensland, also filling us in on his MTB racing and trail riding with teammate Shawn Giles.
Hello everyone,
I’ve just finished polishing my Suzuki RM-Z450 motocross bike up. My teammate Shawn Giles and I are heading to Young for a round of AMCROSS and I think it’s unofficially become a competition for best presented bike.
I have never got myself sticker kits or even touched my bike from standard in the past and now I have found myself with sticker kits, new suspension and a new exhaust system. It is nice to look at now though!
When I look back at my results in Queensland’s rounds 3a and 3b of the Australian Supersport Championship it definitely doesn’t look good, but I feel I raced pretty well.
Again I struggled a lot trying to put down one fast lap in qualifying, but in the races I had no trouble getting myself to that fourth or fifth position. Because it was a double-header round we raced twice on Saturday and then qualified again for Sunday right after race two on Saturday.
Saturday’s race two wasn’t a good race for me as Scott Charlton had bike trouble and went down, so on the following lap while in fourth place and on the wheel of the leaders I came around and hit Scotty’s water and crashed fast.
The bike was really badly damaged and I was shaken up as it was my first high-speed crash, so in qualifying for Sunday’s races I was a bit off by about half a second and that was enough to put me from seventh on Saturday to 12th on the grid for Sunday.
I finished out Sunday really well and had my best result of the weekend, coming through the field and winning a last lap battle for fourth, which was good to get my confidence back up again.
I have to give my mechanic Oggy a quick thank you for working overnight to have my bike ready for Sunday. Thanks mate!
After that I left Queensland feeling confident that I am improving and also excited to go to a track that I will know really well for the next round coming up at Eastern Creek in August.
It’s been a busy couple of weeks since the Queensland round – I have been to Eastern Creek for, I think, five track days and that’s been great. I’ve done a bit of mountain bike racing and some awesome trail riding at Gilesy’s place, too.
I did an 8-hour mountain bike race with my friend and former Supermoto rider Jake Magee at Appin a couple of weekends ago. We entered late and he borrowed a bike, so we just turned up and had to learn the track on our first lap.
We flipped a coin for who would start and luckily Jake had to start, because it was intense with over 100 riders racing down a fire trail to get to a single track first at the start of the race.
It seemed silly to be so aggressive to the first turn in an 8-hour event, but the race was fast the entire time – the whole eight hours of it!
We did much better than we expected and finished to second outright behind two pro riders and we actually got protested because they thought Jake must have cheated on the final lap.
Apart from that I had a great weekend down at the Giles residence a few weeks ago also, riding mountain bikes and trail riding out the back of Lithgow. Talk about extreme trail riding!
It’s not hard to see why Shawn has been able to be so competitive all these years as the riding that he has at his door step is unbelievable. I’ll definitely be heading back there soon.
Well that’s about all I have for now.
Stay safe,
Troy
Note: Check back for Troy’s AMCROSS results. El Mascarado Massacre video
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