KTM Australia press release:

It was a case of new state, new surface, new format – same result, for the KTM Enduro Racing Team’s Daniel Milner, who was unstoppable as the Australian Off-Road Championship reached its penultimate stop at Kyogle in Northern New South Wales.

In what was the first enduro-format round of the year, Milner blasted his KTM 450 EXC-F to two clear class and overall victories to continue extending his lead in both the E2 category and the unofficial – though highly scrutinised – outright classification.

On both days Milner led home local hero Lachlan Stanford for overall fastest time, with Josh Green and Wil Ruprecht third fastest on Saturday and Sunday respectively.

Milner, Green and Riley Graham formed the E2 podium on both days.

On the team’s KTM 300 EXC, Lyndon Snodgrass found himself just shy of the pace in some of the more technical and off-camber elements of the track, and suffered in the time sheets early on, carding ninth in the very first test.

The Victorian teenager accepted the challenge, however, and worked his way up the results to be fifth overall and second in the E3 class to Stanford on Saturday.

Sadly, he boiled his rear brake in the first test today and had to build it all over again, finally finishing up sixth overall and second in class.

Snodgrass will enter the final AORC double-header in a fortnight, placed second in the season-long duel he has maintained for big-bore class supremacy with Lachlan Stanford, and will need to gain the ascendancy to pull off an incredible class win in his first year on the factory team.

Glenn Kearney – KTM Enduro Racing Team Manager: “A great weekend for KTM. It was our first two-day enduro, so the boys did a lot of riding; I believe 200 kilometres yesterday and probably similar today. They really enjoyed the track – it’s an awesome property here in Kyogle; really hilly, grass track style stuff and off-cambers. We’ve had the sand and the mud and now this, and Milner showed he’s good anywhere.

Snodgrass had a bit of a tough one, he struggled in the off-camber stuff, but managed to make improvements each day and got better and better. Unfortunately he lost a big chunk of time this morning when he boiled the rear brake so that put him down the order, but he climbed back to sixth and second in class.

Milner extended the championship lead, and it’s going to come down to the last two rounds for Lyndon, battling for that class win in E3.

Daniel Milner KTM450 EXC-F: “It was a good weekend for us, the bike was unreal in these conditions. Yesterday we didn’t get times so I never knew how I was going so I just had to push all day. Yesterday was also a fairly long day and there was some fatigue, so today I backed it down a little bit to not take as many risks. It worked out well.

I enjoyed the enduro format too. We haven’t done one all year and it was good just trail riding with the boys again. I haven’t got to do that for a long time. I had Greeny and Stanford on my minute today and it was really fun to ride with those guys – we always give each other a bit of crap so it makes it good fun.

I think I’m more than 40 points up now so I’ve just got to finish well in the next round and I’ll have a championship. But it’s never over ‘til the fat lady sings so I’ll go home and keep doing my work and see what happens.”

Lyndon Snodgrass KTM300 EXC: “I started off in the first test boiling my rear brake and losing it for the last quarter of that test, so that put me back off the bat. From then on I was trying to catch back up. It was tough, but I had made improvements towards the end and that was giving me time back.

It was definitely more technical than what we’ve been racing on, but it was good riding up here. Nice fun trail and flowy tests.

The bike ran awesome all weekend. Lachy’s got a few points on me in this one, so we can only charge as hard as we can in Victoria and try and get it back. I’ve never been up there but it’s meant to be pretty good, I can’t wait to get into it.”