Graham Jarvis and Mario Roman post strong finishes at the 2016 Hell’s Gate Extreme Enduro.
The following is from Husqvarna:
Battling their way to the end of a long and demanding day’s racing, Graham Jarvis and Mario Roman raced their Rockstar Energy Husqvarna Factory Racing TE 300s to second and third overall at the 13th edition of Hell’s Gate Extreme Enduro in Italy, on February 6.
Despite this year’s running of Hell’s Gate featuring a much revised and simplified race format to previous years, the event once again proved to be anything but easy.
The morning qualifying race ended with Roman being the faster of the Husqvarna teammates, and he came close to topping the result sheets. Taking no risks, Jarvis placed fifth.
At the start of the main race it was Roman who ran second behind early pacesetter Wade Young [Sherco]. The young Spaniard held second for several laps before eventually being caught and passed by his more experienced teammate, Jarvis.
Working his way forward having failed to get away from the start quickly, Jarvis fought his way from outside the top 10 to fourth in no time at all. Setting an impressive pace, he then moved into second with close to half the race remaining. Yet despite his best efforts, Jarvis was unable to catch leader Young. With the final 30 minutes of the race a torturous test of endurance around a highly-technical Endurocross track, Jarvis secured the runner-up result.
“I didn’t make things easy for myself at the start,” Jarvis said. “I was really slow away from the drop of the flag, so I had quite a few riders to pass. There were only two technical areas of the track, so it was hard to make up time. The spectators did a great job helping the riders, but again it made it hard for me to make up any time on Wade. But hats off to Wade, he rode a really good race. I feel like I rode well, so I’m happy with that, and it’s another podium result at Hell’s Gate. Although it was a completely different race than all previous years it was still tough – it was a long day on the bike.”
Roman overcame an issue with his headlight to secure third–his first Extreme Enduro podium result of 2016.
“I’m really pleased with my result,” Roman said. “Everything went well in the morning qualifying race.I had one crash that cost me around 15 seconds, without it I’m sure I would have qualified first for the evening race. The main race was tough–it wore you down lap after lap. There were only a few really hard places, but added to the long morning race it was physical. Finishing on the podium with Graham is great. Everything was going well but on one of the hard parts of the track a spectator accidentally broke my front light. I had to stop in the pits twice to fix it, losing time. But I’m really pleased. Now I return to the SuperEnduro World Championship.”
Hell’s Gate 2016 Results
1. Wade Young-Sherco
2. Graham Jarvis-Husqvarna
3. Mario Roman-Husqvarna
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