By RUSSELL COLVIN
YARRA Ranges Enduro champion Daniel Sanders was able to maintain his position at the top of the Australian Off-Road Championship (AORC) despite injury.
The 21-year-old, from Three Bridges, was competing in round five and six at Murray Bridge in South Australia on 23-24 April, when he injured his left ankle during Saturday’s fifth round.
He managed to win the first sprint, with a time of 9min05.278, but unfortunately crashed in the second heat after he got his foot caught, resulting in an injured left ankle.
“I’m not too sure what injury I have done, but my left leg is quite weak,” Sanders explained after the second sprint.
“I can’t put too much pressure on it, so today will be all about damage limitation and bring home as many points for the championship as I can.”
Sanders, who has been victorious in the opening four rounds of the 2016 AORC season, did exactly that and brought his KTM 300EXC machine home in fifth place with a total time of 1hr 05:27.964 overall and third in the E3 class.
“The plan was to get through the day and score some solid points for the championship, which we have done,” said Sanders at the conclusion of the day.
“It was lucky that I did pull a good lead in the first sprint which did kind of save the day. We’ll recover up for tomorrow and hopefully salvage some more points.”
Round six on Sunday and once again it was all about ‘bringing home the bacon’ for the 2014 Under 19s champion.
Riding through the pain, Sanders again finished in a solid fifth place outright, with a time of 42min 36.257, while in the E3 he finished second to Husqvarna’s Lachlan Stanford by 29.403 seconds.
Sanders did, however, lose a bit of time in the first test in the morning after he hit the deck twice and also came off in the last test.
“If I didn’t crash in the last test, I could have opened some guy’s eyes, but that’s racing,” Sanders said at the end of the day, “You have to take the good with the bad sometimes.”
“Today, my foot was pretty sore. However, thankfully the track was a bit more flowed a bit more, which was better for me.”
The KTM factory rider did label the day as a “confident booster” as he was racing injured, and couldn’t really turn left as well as he could; it was good to get away with a top five finish and a second in the E3 class.
“To get the results today in the condition, it has been a big confident boost for sure. We have a few months off now until the next two rounds in Victoria, so I’ll get back to full fitness and hopefully finish the championship off strong and try and win this championship for myself, the team and all the sponsors.”
“I have to give the 2016 KTM Australia Off-Road Team a massive shout out, as once again they really do work super hard and supply me one of the best bikes out there – couldn’t do it without them.”
The AORC now heads to Hedley in Victoria on the second last weekend of July. Sanders carries a healthy 14-point advantage in the outright championship, while in the E3 class, Stanford has slashed his title lead to just four points.
