VOLUME 59 ISSUE 50 DECEMBER 13, 2022 P129
"I was sick of being at home
not racing," said Walker. "I
was desperate to get back
on the track. I feel like I could
maybe have ridden the last hard
enduro, but then it
made no sense be-
cause I hadn't done
anything for a long
period of time. That's
what I'm struggling
with at the moment.
I can only ride two to
three days a week,
maximum, just be-
cause my body has
taken so long to re-
cover. So, I decided
I would come over
here and race a full
championship. It's better.
I want to learn it because
I want to come back and
race again in the future."
With EnduroCross utiliz-
ing shorter races, it made
perfect sense.
"EnduroCross was
perfect for my situation,"
said Walker. "I'm actually
speaking at the moment to sign
my contract for next year, and
I'm going to try and keep more
shorter races. I don't think I'm
going to race the WESS Cham-
pionship [FIM Hard Enduro
World Championship], just
because I do everything on my
own. It's quite difficult to drive
to all the races, and they've
extended the calendar. There
are more races. There are
three fly-aways now, and it just
costs so much to do that. So,
I'm going to do the SuperEn-
duro series and EnduroCross,
and then pick some other
races in between. Maybe a
few of the WESS rounds, and
maybe Romaniacs."
The factory KTM team let
the veteran Walker go two and
a half years ago during Covid,
and since then he's run his
own program.
"There were just no other
teams to ride for, so I had no
other option," said Walker who
was a long-time KTM family
member. "I spoke to the guys
at Beta because it's a good
bike. I always thought it was a
good bike. So, I just decided
"I honestly don't blame
people, like Stew Baylor, who
do their own thing—it's nice to
be able to use what you want
to use. There's no politics. You
race where you want to race."
31-year-old Walker has won
several high-profile off-road
races, such as Erzbergrodeo,
Red Bull 111 Megawatt,
Romaniacs, Hell's Gate and
The Tough One. He's also
a former FIM SuperEnduro
World Champion.
Walker started racing at the
age of nine and has no plans
of stopping anytime soon.
