3rd Year Special Annual Double Issue Vol 4 Issue 1 & 2 Jan - Apr 2 3rd Year Special Annual Double Issue Vol 4 Issue | Page 83
ADVENTURE & WILDLIFE
Supercross
Supercross (or SX) is simply indoor motocross.
Supercross is more technical and rhythm like to
riders. Typically situated in a variety of stadiums
and open or closed arenas, it is notable for its
numerous jumps. In North America, this has
been turned into an extremely popular spectator
sport, filling large baseball, soccer, and football
stadiums, leading to Motocross being now termed
the “outdoors”. However, in Europe it is less
popular sport, as the predominate focus there is
on Motocross.
Supermoto
Supermoto is a racing category that is a cross-
over between road-racing and motocross. The
motorcycles are mainly motocross types with
road-racing tyres. The racetrack is a mixture of
road and dirt courses (in different proportions)
and can take place either on closed circuits or in
temporary venues (such as urban locations).
The riding style on the tarmac section is notice-
ably different from other forms of tarmac-based
racing, with a different line into corners, sliding
of the back wheel around the corner, and using
the leg straight out to corner (as opposed to the
noticeable touching of the bent knee to the
tarmac of road racers).
Enduro and cross-country
Enduro is a form of off-road motorcycle sport
that primarily focuses on the endurance of the
competitor. In the most traditional sense (“Time
Card Enduros”), competitors complete a 10+
mile lap, of predominately off-road going,
Vol 4 | Issue 2 |Mar - Apr 2019
often through forestry. The lap is made up of
different stages, each with a target time to
complete that stage in exactly, there are
penalties for being early and late, thus the goal
is to be exactly “on time”. Some stages are
deliberately “tight”, others are lax allowing
the competitor to recuperate. There are also a
variety of special tests, on variety of terrain to
further aid classification, these are speed stages
where the fastest time is desired. A normal event
lasts for 3 to 4 hours, although longer events
are not uncommon. Some events, particularly
national and world championship events take
place over several days and require maintenance
work to be carried out within a limited
time window or while the race is running. To
prevent circumvention of the maintenance
restrictions, the motorcycles are kept overnight in
secure storage.
There is a World Enduro Championship (WEC)
that has events across Europe, with a few
excursions to North America. The most
significant event in the Enduro calendar is
the International Six Days Enduro (formerly the
International Six Days Trial), where countries
enter teams of riders (i.e. Enduro’s “World Cup”),
as well as club teams – the event combines
amateur sport with the professional level sport, it
also takes place in a much more geographically
dispersed range of locations.
In addition to traditional Time Card Enduros
held over a long lap, a variety of other forms of
sport have been taken up; notably “Short Course
Enduros”, a shorter (in lap length) form of Time
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