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Podium Finish for Can Am at the Australian
Thumb Pump 300
Team Epic High Roller Can Am’s Michael
Roycroft finished 3rd in his debut enduro race
on a Can Am DS 450x at the Thumb Pump 300 in
western Victoria on Sunday 27th April. Team mate
Jamie Barkla finished a respectable 7th on a
stock DS 450x in the Iron man class. Michael was
not alone on the podium with Darrell (Bullet)
Knight finishing 1st in the 4x4 class on his
stock Can Am Renegade 800x. Former Finke desert
race winner Rick Beer placed second on his Can
Am DS 450x in the team’s event with team mate
Rob Van Vliet.
Friday 25th May saw an entourage of quads roll
into the dry dusty land south of Mildura to
contest the debut of the Thumb Pump 300 enduro
race. This 300km race was sponsored by Can Am
and saw the maiden endurance race by a fleet of
Can Am DS 450 in Australia. The 45km loop had
everything you could think of from long dusty
sweeping corners, to high speed straights into
5th gear pinned S bends through the trees. There
was even a 7km whoops section to sort the men
from the boys.
The event saw 4 classes of quads contested by
about 60 riders over the weekend- the classes
split the field into 4x4, iron woman, teams and
iron man. With practise laps on Friday, Saturday
began with a prologue and the first 160kms was
raced on Saturday afternoon. The finishing 140km
was battled out on Sunday for those who survived
the punishment of the previous day.
Practice saw Team Epic High Roller Can Am
riders Michael Roycroft and Jamie Barkla ride
together for the first time in the Iron man
class, in what was also the first endurance race
that either of them had competed in. The
practice conditions were dry and dusty, the guys
got 3 laps in and felt comfortable with the
track layout and got a taste of how tough the
race would be. Jamie was aboard a stock DS 450x
with only minor modifications and did feel he
might be held back a bit by the suspension
limitations of a stock bike once the track got
chopped up.
Prologue began with riders drawing their
starting positions from a hat, Michael and Jamie
drew mid-field positions for the 13km dash
around the first and last quarter of the track.
As expected the top moto x riders in the country
were posting fast times, Cameron Wade on a
Suzuki LTR 450 made top billing for his team
with 10mins 12sec. Michael posted 10min 43sec to
make the 9th fastest time and Jamie an 11min
3seconds for 14th position on the start grid for
the race that afternoon.
2pm Saturday afternoon saw the race start and
the wind pick up which cleared away some of the
dust but also brought ominous rain clouds.
Michael was on the pace with the riders ahead of
him, he followed the pack but unfortunately they
took a wrong turn going at 115km/h and were
heading in the wrong direction around the track.
This mistake was only noticed when a marshal
pointed them in the right direction, however by
now Michael had lost about 2 minutes having to
back track to join the race. Half of the riders
in this pack didn’t turn around, joining the
track further on but making a short cut in the
process, this was penalised with a time penalty
at the end of the day.
Race results were not live posted and the
riders could not be certain of their standings
till later Saturday night. Impressively at this
stage Michael was clearly in 3rd position with a
time of 2hr 29min 58sec including a 1 minute
time penalty for a pit stop speed violation, and
Jamie was in 6th with 2hr 35min 20sec. The Iron
man field had been reduced from 29 to 23 riders
by the end of the day due to 6 DNFs. The
casualty list included big names who had posted
fast times, Luke Beechey’s Polaris broke a
steering stem and lost a wheel and Paul Worth’s
Kawasaki broke a steering stem.
Overnight rain dampened the ground and aided
in more traction for the riders across the
field. Sunday morning was the final day, with 3
laps ahead of them and the competition feeling a
little bit sore, Michael and Jamie felt
confident that they could at least hold their
results if not better them.
All the Can Am riders were getting 2 laps out
of there fuel tanks, which was an advantage over
some of the other bikes. Both Michael and Jamie
held consistent lap times during the morning and
with not one mechanical issue with the DS 450x
both riders came home with the rider and bike in
one piece.
Up until the presentation the riders did not
know their positions, and with the announcement
of the top 3 it was an achievement that Michael
had retained his 3rd position overall for the
weekend and Jamie moving to 7th position on a
stock DS 450. Michael was surprised to get in
the top 3 and later found out that there was
only 4 mins between 1st and 3rd place, with a
couple of mishaps hindering his times, there was
not much stopping Michael to be further up the
podium if all things went his way.
Michael later said at the presentation, “I
felt fantastic out there over the 3 few days,
the nerves really hit during the race as I had
no race experience in this type of format of ATV
racing before, I wasn’t sure if I was pushing it
too hard or not, and whether my body would hold
up but I just held the throttle on as long as I
could and pushed past the mental games during
the 4 ½ hr race. If I had known my times were
good enough to get third I think I could have
pushed a little harder to make up some time. I
didn’t feel fatigued at all out there over both
days, bring on the next one”.
Team Epic Highroller Energy Can Am next
outing is at the 2nd round of the Tri State MX
series in Mt Gambier South Australia on May
18th.
Team Epic High Roller Energy Can Am would
like to thank the following sponsors - Can Am
Australia, Epic Racing, High Roller Energy,
Undecided Extreme Clothing, Elka Suspension,
Motoworks, ITP, Pro Grip, Acerbis, Fasst Flexx,
Big M Edge, Nestle Peters Maxibon, Coolabah Tree
Café, Valvoline Oils, Mobil fuel, Dickstones
Meats, Hardiman ATV, Austraco.com, Quadsquad,
Off-Road imports, Car Cube, Moto X Nutrition,
RPM and Suspensions are us.
About Epic Racing
Products
Epic Racing Products manufactures only the
highest quality racing components. We race what
we sell. Epic Racing Products and suspension
components can be found on the ATVs of top
riders from coast to coast, including Factory
Can-Am riders Jeremy lawson, Greg Gee, and Sage
Baker.
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