VOL. 52 ISSUE 23 JUNE 9, 2015 P81
Briefly...
Laia Sanz started competing in Trials
events in her home country of Spain
at the age of six and the 29-year-
old is arguably the best female off-
road motorcycle racer in the world.
She finished ninth in this year's Da-
kar Rally and Austin was her fourth
Enduro X gold in five tries. Her one
miss ended with a silver medal when
Maria Forsberg managed to wrestle
a win away from her in 2013.
The X Games Enduro X venue shares
the same space with the motorcycle
Best Whip, Speed and Style and
new Quarter Pipe competition and
many of the Enduro X riders were
concerned when they saw freestyle
ramps setup on the course. There
was an optional lane around the left
side but in the end, all of the com-
petitors ended up using the ramp as
it was a much faster line and had a
large, safe landing area.
Beta's Max Gerston has had a great
season so far and was sitting in fifth
in points after round three and look-
ing forward to a strong X Games.
Disaster struck just two weeks prior
to the event as he suffered a broken
pelvis that required surgery and that
typically requires six to eight weeks
of recovery time. He managed to
get a doctor clearance to ride (re-
quired by both X Games and Beta)
and showed up just hoping to get
some points. Gerston further proved
his toughness by qualifying for the
12-rider main event. The pain was
clear during the main as Gerston was
forced to back off the pace and ulti-
mately finish 12th. "This is X Games,
I had to try to do everything I could to
be here to compete," he said.
needed to—ahead of Haaker. The
two are now tied with 90 points
and Brown closed in with his win
and is just 10 points back.
Haaker finished fourth in Aus-
tin just ahead of Gas Gas rider
Geoff Aaron and Beta's Kyle
Redmond. Ty Tremaine, Nick
Thompson, Cory Graffunder and
Jamie Lanza rounded out the
top-10 respectively on KTMs.
WOMEN'S ENDURO X
The Women's main event fea-
tured 13 of the best female riders
in the world and Spain's Laia
Sanz took the gold medal after a
race long battle with Tarah
Gieger. Gieger, a former Wom-
en's Moto X Gold medal winner,
was faster in the jump sections
and found her way past Sanz
briefly but could not make it stick
and had to settle for the silver.
Kacy Martinez, the defending
gold medalist, took the bronze.
"It was important to do a
good start because of all of the
jumps," said Sanz, who is a top
Dakar Rally competitor and now
a four-time X Games Gold Medal
winner. "All the time I could hear
her bike and I think we put on a
good race for the fans."
"I knew from the get-go that
the battle was on when she
[Laia] lifted her elbow over mine
off the start," said Gieger. "We
pretty much threw elbows right
out of the start gate until the very
end so it was super fun."
