Less than a month after his sensational Dakar podium, KTM Off-Road Racing Team rider Toby Price has visited the opposite end of the dirt bike racing spectrum – the high-intensity cut-and-thrust of endurocross racing – with the same result.

Price finished third behind round winner Mike Brown and Josh Green as the 2015 Australian Enduro-X Nationals series began at Brisbane’s Archerfield Speedway.

The Brisbane Enduro-X track was a man-made obstacle course that included monster logs and boulder gardens and though Price was still suffering the residual flatness that Dakar finishers carry for up to 6 weeks after the fact, he still managed 5-5-1 finishes on his KTM 350 EXC-F to leave Brisbane well in the title hunt.

Right behind him in fourth on the night was young team mate Daniel ‘Chucky’ Sanders on the two-stroke KTM 300 EXC, his 7-2-4 finishes indicating an ability to match it with the older boys and learn on the run.

Last month’s Deep Well Motocross winner Tye Simmonds set about surely and steadily getting to grips with the format on the team’s second KTM 350 EXC-F, and was on target, holding second in the opening final, when a violent over-the-bars on a log-double took the wind out of his sails in more ways than one and he finished the night a disappointed eighth.

Flair Action Sports KTM teammates Kristy McKinnon and Rhianna Buchanan made a big splash aboard their KTM Freeride 250R machines, with multiple Australian Trials Champion Kristie McKinnon putting the model’s unique blend of usability and punch to good use dominating the Women’s category.

McKinnon powered her Freeride to a 10-second victory in the final ahead of Tayla Jones and Jessica Gardner while Buchanan finished sixth.

Toby Price: “The first couple didn’t go our way, but in the last one I got a holeshot and could run the place I wanted, to just try to hold the guys back a little bit. Once you get those other guys out in front, it’s hard to try to snag onto them and get around them when you’re doing the same pace. Dakar has definitely drained me out a little bit at the moment, but hey, at the end of the day, to get third in the first round is good points. We’re just looking forward to the last two, and to see if we can get the body back into shape and ready to go.”

Daniel ‘Chucky’ Sanders: “That was pretty good. I really felt good on the new bike, and I got some good starts in the mains. I needed to concentrate in the second and third one, but the first one was a downer; I got the holeshot, and just wasted it in the first few corners and was set back for the rest of the race. That affected me for the overall, but finishing fourth I’m still stoked with. It would be good to get on the podium next time, and I can’t thank the team enough for their help – awesome!”

Tye Simmonds: “Definitely a loss for me. I’m a bit p’ed off with myself. We started the first practice with a fair bit of arm pump which was kind of expected, and I was just getting better as the day went on. I qualified about seventh, then we had the top-10 shootout, and I ended up getting down to fifth. Then in the first one I sort of muscled my way through and got to second and had no-one pressuring me, and I don’t even know what happened to tell you the truth, I came at a log double and the next thing I know I am on my head. I bit it pretty hard! The other two were terrible starts which really hurt me, so, we’ll go back to the drawing board this week and try to fix it for Sydney.”

Ben Grabham: “It was a solid night. As we saw with some of the other fast riders, it’s easy to get hurt here, and there were quite a few big crashes. So it’s great to get Toby up on the podium in third. Chucky rode good tonight; he showed a lot of promise and finished fourth overall. Tye was obviously running really well in the first final, and had quite a big crash and I think that rattled him a fair bit. He’s come away with some solid points and overall it’s good, Toby is still pretty flat and buggered, it’s going to take him probably a good month and a half to get over Dakar, which people don’t realise, but he still went out and got a sniff in that last final and held on to the lead, so it was awesome for him to win that over Brownie.”

Kristie McKinnon: “Well you can’t get much better than that start, I’m pretty happy with it! I didn’t overdo it, I just took my time and rode the track and had a good time. It was a great track, there were a lot of obstacles on it and that’s what you want, but it was pretty flowing. With the water, and the lights, and a couple of other bikes banging bars, it was pretty challenging, and you couldn’t have a better bike for it than the KTM Freeride. They are a bit like a trials bike in the way that they find traction in the real technical stuff but they’ve got a lot better suspension so when you are hitting things fast it’s nice, it’s like riding a big bike. It’s so good.”

Rhianna Buchanan: “I have had an absolute ball, Col and Dave have really stepped up their game since last year. The track was incredible! I had so much fun riding it, and of course being on the KTM Freeride, I could not have asked for better. It’s light and narrow, yet I feel like I can touch the ground; it was absolutely fantastic.”

For more information on KTM motorcycles visit www.ktm.com.au or www.facebook.com/ktmaustralia.