Quite possibly the toughest event on the FIM Hard Enduro World Championship calendar, Red Bull Romaniacs definitely separates the men from the boys! With a challenging course that ran up, down, and across the Carpathian Mountains, the race delivered five days of physical punishment with this year’s event also including a marathon stage that added a little twist to proceedings.
With a sixth-place finish at the previous round in Italy, Taddy Blazusiak arrived in Romania with his sights set firmly on claiming a spot on the overall podium. Frustratingly, a few small mistakes early on and a big crash on day three proved to be costly for Blazusiak, and despite picking up the pace and improving his finishes day-by-day as the race progressed, he was unable to climb up the overall leaderboard any higher than sixth by the end of the grueling event. Nevertheless, another sixth-place finish puts solid points on the board with four rounds still remaining.
Taddy Blazusiak: “I’m really happy to have reached the finish line here at Romaniacs. It’s been a wild event with crashes and navigational mistakes, but this is hard enduro and I really love the challenge of it. The adrenalin took over today as I had a big crash yesterday and hurt my shoulder, but I was able to ride through the pain and finish. Overall, it’s good points again and my bike worked great all week, so it’s been a very positive race for me besides my crashes and a few navigational mistakes on day two. It’s been an awesome experience as always at Romaniacs and I’m looking forward to the next one in two weeks’ time.”
Much like Taddy Blazusiak, junior supported racer Michael Walkner also continued to improve as the five-day event pressed on. Clearly a hard enduro star in the making, the young Austrian mixed it up with the best of them all week and impressed on the final day with a well-deserved sixth place finish. In the end, Walkner placed ninth overall at Romaniacs, just under thirty minutes behind Blazusiak following over 20 hours of intense racing! (source: gasgas)
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