HQVA press release:

Husqvarna Enduro Racing Team riders Glenn Kearney and Lachy Stanford proved each other’s fiercest rivals as a rain affected ninth and tenth rounds of the Australian Off-Road Championships took place at Kyogle, in northern New South Wales at the weekend.

Team Manager Glenn Kearney used his trusty Husqvarna FE 501 to log his best combined result for a weekend since having his right ankle fused in off-season surgery. The highly decorated Australian enduro racing identity debuted a new, twin rear caliper braking system incorporating a thumb lever, and carded six overall on day one, fifth overall on day two, and third in the E3 class on both days.

The man who pipped him for fifth place on Saturday was none other than Husqvarna FE 350-mounted Stanford, who was sublime in the wet conditions on his way to third in the highly competitive E2 class. As conditions got gnarlier today however, Stanford couldn’t quite find the same mojo and was forced to be satisfied with eighth outright and fourth in class, but the Byron Bay rider maintains second place in E2.

Husqvarna’s young junior ace Fraser Higlett added two more AORC J4 category round wins to his tally at Kyogle, and will take a handy lead into next month’s finale at Dungog.

Husqvarna Enduro Racing Team Manager Glenn Kearney (FE501): “The Kyogle club salvaged a good weekend. They had an awesome, 30 minute cross-country loop set out, but it poured rain all Friday night so by Saturday morning there was no way we were going to get around it. They cut it down and salvaged a sprint round out of it and we ended up getting plenty of riding in. It ended up really slippery and boggy with quite deep ruts, so it was quite a challenging weekend which was good. Yesterday I was third in E3 and sixth outright, but Lachy rode better and he beat me by a point overall for fifth. A great battle. Today Lachy struggled a little bit, and I had a better day coming to grips with the new brake setup so I got a few third outrights in some tests – close to Toby and Hollis, so I was very happy with that – I just ended up missing out on fourth for the day, and I got third in the class again.
Kevin and Christian did an awesome job here, they had their hands full with the mud every time we came in, and had to clean bikes all day long for two days.”

Lachy Stanford (FE350): “It was a good weekend, I liked the track. Kyogle club did an awesome job to still put it on because we had a lot of rain on Friday night. They canned the cross-country because no one would have got around, but they made two really good sprint tracks. Yesterday I ended up fifth outright and third in class in E2. My pace was there, but today wasn’t a very good day – I just couldn’t get to where I wanted to be at the front of the pack. I felt okay but I think the tracks were a little bit harder today and I just rode a little bit tight. I want to get to the front pretty desperately though, so, maybe next round.”

Fraser Higlett (FE250): “A fun weekend, but it was hard work. I wasn’t really used to the mud – that made it a bit challenging. But y’know, you get that. I just had to be a little bit smoother and sort of short-shift a bit when normally I’d sort of let it rev out before I change gears. It is also a really short track so you couldn’t make too many mistakes or it would make a big difference. I made a few mistakes and crashed a fair bit, but there wasn’t much I could do about that. I was probably going a little bit fast for the track conditions, I could have slowed down but that’s alright, I’ll learn from it and we got there in the end.”

For more information on Husqvarna motorcycles visit www.husqvarna-motorcycles.com.