Motocross champs at SA's seat of power
The Union Buildings in Pretoria will be the backdrop for 2015 Red Bull X-Fighters World Tour championship next week.
|||Pretoria – The vast lawn area of the Union Buildings in Pretoria has been transformed by mounds of dirt for the fourth stop of the 2015 Red Bull X-Fighters World Tour championship scheduled for next weekend.
On Friday several news crews went on a tour of the massifs and ramps which will be the battlefield of the event, overlooked by the giant bronze statue of iconic former president Nelson Mandela. This will be the second time that 12 of the world’s best freestyle motocross athletes do battle in South Africa.
Spokesman for the event, South African Free Motocross champion Nick “Sick Nick” de Wit said the track design had safety features which meant riders would feel comfortable and push the limits.
“In freestyle motocrossing, these types of tracks are designed that the riders can get really creative. If a riders sees a creative line by going backwards on the track, they will be the only rider on the track, so they can get creative and score really high by doing something that other riders didn’t think of,” said De Wit.
“That is the nice thing about freestyle motocross, you can pretty much do what you want on the track. There is no set rules. The run-ups here are quite short. Most of the times you have a 25 meter run-up to jump about 26 to 27 meter distance on the ramp. The corners are used that the rider can go around keep a lot of speed.”
In 2014, a capacity crowd of 22,000 watched the massive event. Organisers of the event have described this year’s line-up as the best ever seen in the series’ 15-year history.
The competition will be heightened at the Pretoria leg of the series because even though none of the four riders within reach of the World Tour championship can clinch it on South Africa soil, one mistake could well put them out of the running.
Having won the first two stops in 2015, Australia’s Clinton Moore tops the standings, but a third-place finish at Madrid has left him only a few points ahead of 2013 World Tour champion Tom Pagès of France, whose jaw-dropping runs in the Spanish capital earned him a historic hat-trick of three consecutive wins at the Las Ventas bullring.
Also in striking distance is New Zealand’s Levi Sherwood, the 2012 World Tour champion who, like Pagès, has the potential to become only the second man ever to capture two Red Bull X-Fighters World Tour titles. Rounding out this fantastic four of freestyle motocross is France’s David Rinaldo, whose career-best 2015 season has also put him in championship contention.
South Africa’s 12-man field includes eight Red Bull X-Fighters event winners: Moore, Pagès and Sherwood, plus Dany Torres (ESP), Rob Adelberg (AUS), Adam Jones (USA), Taka Higashino (JPN) and reigning World Tour champion Josh Sheehan (AUS), who was crowned at the 2014 finale in Pretoria. Statistically, Sheehan can’t claim another championship this year; but Pretoria’s vast course suits his larger-than-life riding style, and with the field’s only double-backflip he could be a spoiler to win in South Africa and shake up the standings overall.
After the event in Pretoria, the 2015 Red Bull X-Fighters World Tour Championship will be decided at the season finale on October 30 at Abu Dhabi’s spectacular waterfront Corniche in the United Arab Emirates.
Tickets this year range from R295 up to R1,950 for the VIP hospitality category.
ANA