Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/128180
recent years. With bikes becoming more and more expensive, and more and more specialized, he's of the opinion that the lack of riding areas, and the fact that kids can't use their bikes during the week as a form of transport, is why there's less people taking to the dirt. "The fact that Italian road racing now attracts huge media interest and sponsorship also leaves little room for the sport of enduro to grow in Italy: he points out. As we walk through the narrow streets that lead to the three-story property he's having renovated, I'm surprised to learn that no one in the Sala family had any interest in bikes. His rise from enthusiastic schoolboy to World Champion is all his own doing. Like many of the World's top enduro riders, Sala tried his hand at both national and international motocross before settling into a career as an enduro rider. Although not brought up on the sprint discipline, he confesses that enduro was always his number-one passion. His one claim to MX fame came when he competed in the Slovakian 125cc GP in '88. "I will never forget it," he expiains. "It was my first and last Grand Prix. During the hour-long freetraining session, I had stayed out on the track for the full hour, and when it came to the qualifying session, I was so tired I nearly didn't make it into the race." He goes on to tell how he just scraped through, eventually managing to finish 20th and 22nd. Pizza Delivery Having to spend his own money to fund his racing, and needing to deliver bread on Saturday mornings before driving to the races, he decided to revert back to enduros in '89 after his stint in motocross. "I only changed to racing motocross because my friends were doing it and it seemed more sociable: he offers as an explanation as to why he stopped riding enduros. This time mounted on a Honda given to him by a local dealer, Sala's '89 and '90 seasons were together to be the turning point in his career. Finishing near the front of the Italian Enduro Champi0nship in his first season back, talks with the thenItalian KTM importers Farioli saw him start a 12-year association with the Austrian marque at the beginning of the '90s - one that has lasted to this day. Still effectively working full time in his parents' shop, Sala found it increasingly difficult to balance his work commitments with his ambitions to further his motorcycling career and decided to speak to Mr. Farioli. "I explained that I needed to take some money though not for me, but so I could pay someone to work in the shop when I was away," he explains. Farioli agreed. Sala's results started to improve and, as he puts it, "Life started to change after that. " For Absent Friends On our way back down from Sala's soon-to-befinished country retreat, the conversation turns briefly to the untimely death of Britain's numberone rally rider John Deacon. Sala was a competitor in the Master Rally the year that Deacon died, and he speaks poignantly about the respect and friendship he had for John. Having both heard and read about the Masters of Dirt weekend organized in Deacon's remembrance, Sala asked, with genuine interest, about what went on during the drunken weekend in early April near Deacon's home on the south coast of England. He mentioned briefly how he, Deacon and KTM factory rider Kari Tiainen had all gotten drunk together at the end of the '99 Dakar in celebration of the fact that Deacon would soon become a father for the first time. He quickly finished the story, having seemingly become uncomfortable with the reality of having lost a friend. Then he changes the subject. Later, over a plate of pasta, he again starts to talk animatedly about life as a rally rider, and he's soon joking about horror stories his relatively short Dakar career has already unearthed: Remembering with considerable accuracy how he crashed only 200 meters from the finish of his first-ever Dakar in '98 - a crash that nearly put him out of the event. He goes on to tell his "best" story. "The Dakar has become like a motocross in the desert," he explains while chasing a piece of pasta around his plate. "The speeds are incredible. You really have to stay alert to what is going on around you." That said, he talks briefly about his respect for countryman Fabrizzio Meoni's rally achievements before harpooning the troublesome piece of fusilli, popping it into his mouth, sitting back in his chair, and preparing to tell me another tale. "At the Dakar in 2000, while trying to make up lost time after breaking a chain, I crashed very heavily. " Using his hand as a bike to help me visualize the incident, he raises his fingers to show that, at the very last minute, he'd tried to lift the bike's front wheel in an attempt to stop it from smashing directly into dust-hidden rocks. Going on to drop his fingers and lift his wrist, he shows that he was catapulted over the bars at considerable speed. "I landed about where that bank is," he explains, pointing an uncomfortably long distance away from where we were sitting. "I tried to stand up after about a half-hour, but I could see black marks everywhere I looked: he laughs, making light of what was obviously a very serious situation. He goes on to explain that he finished both that and the following day's competition before finally having to throw in the towel. J realized then that his commitment to trying to win the Dakar is unquestionable. But better still is his story of how, another time, he played a game of human pinball with himself, a factory KTM, and some extremely hard African scenery. Knowing that the day's stage included some dangerous rocky sections, something organizers and competitors warned him about, what he thought was a straight, flat-out road wasn't. Clearly marked as a danger point on his road book, his unexpected and unwanted off-road experience, while now the ace card in his armory of "near miss- cue. e n .. _ "" • NOVEMBER 1 3, 2002 39