FLASHBACK! THE MXA WRECKING CREW RACES AN AUSTRIAN 450 NATIONAL

MXA ADVENTURE!: HOW WE SPENT OUR EUROPEAN VACATION

BY JOSH MOSIMAN
Photos by Trevor Nelson

When KTM originally approached MXA about touring the KTM factory, I was excited, but when they combined it with me getting the chance to race an Austrian National, I was over the moon. It was the cherry on top. Leading up to the race, I was told that the event would be much smaller than an AMA National and that there would be other classes racing as well. I expected a big local race with some Pro classes slotted in between the Novice, Vet and Mini motos. I was wrong! There was local racing on Saturday, but Sunday’s event was a real “National” for Austria. They did have a 65, 85 and 125 class, along with the 250 Pro class and Open Pro classes, but they were all considered National-level races. This meant there were plenty of riders out there to make the track rough, but not so many that it was unorganized. Every practice, qualifying session and race was slotted into a time schedule, which made for an organized and professional atmosphere. 

After a short flight to San Francisco and an 11-hour flight from there, the MXA wrecking crew of Dennis Stapleton, Josh Fout, Trevor Nelson and I landed in Munich, Germany, on Wednesday morning and wouldn’t fly out for almost a week. . We drove straight to the KTM Motohall Museum in Mattighofen and started our tour. We took photos and videos and interviewed employees all day Wednesday and Thursday (read about it on page 34), then we drove to a beautiful track called X Bowl Arena, just outside of Salzburg, on Friday. I drove to the practice track with Michael Staufer, aka “Micky,” and it was a blast. The drive from Mattighofen to Salzburg was a two-lane road, straight out of a James Bond movie, and Micky drove the Sprinter van like a rally car the whole way. The views from the practice track were unreal. Nestled in a valley between the Salzburg Slate Alps was a hard-packed track that we practiced on for the day. MXA test riders Dennis Stapleton, Josh Fout were able to suit up and ride the track as well. The X Bowl Arena track was a standard European practice track. It had hard-pack dirt, was hilly and had a great flow to it.  

Factory Red Bull KTM rally racer Matthias Walkner was also at the track with us. Mathias was a former MXGP racer who made the switch to the short-lived MX3 Championship (for 500cc two-strokes and up to 650cc four-strokes; 450 four-strokes were not allowed). Mathias won the 2012 MX3 World Championship (before the class was discontinued in 2014) and was working in the KTM R&D department as a test rider. During a Dakar Rally bike test, he was faster than the team’s factory riders. One thing led to another, and he was promoted from the R&D program to the full-factory rally team. Crazy, right? He would eventually win the 2018 Dakar Rally outright. Since Matthias lives nearby, he rode from his house to the track on his factory rally bike, and he was ripping it on the motocross track! I was blown away by how fast he was. His lap times were a full second quicker than mine. He even let me take it for a spin, and I couldn’t believe how good the bike was for its size. 

THE DRIVE FROM MATTIGHOFEN TO SALZBURG WAS A TWO-LANE ROAD, STRAIGHT OUT OF A JAMES BOND MOVIE, AND MICKY DROVE THE SPRINTER VAN LIKE A RALLY CAR THE WHOLE WAY.

I’ve ridden a lot of cool bikes in my day, but I never thought I’d be riding a factory Dakar Rally bike! My dad owns a KTM 950 Adventure bike, and I knew my dad would be ecstatic to hear I got to ride this thing. Matthias was overly generous with his bike and pointers, letting me ride as long as I wanted and even telling me to charge harder coming into the turns. The track was so hard-packed that it only had one rut, but that rut was tough to hit with a huge dashboard blocking your view! 

Micky Staufer wanted me to use the Friday test session to figure out how I wanted Sunday’s race bike to be set up. For my chosen KTM 450SXF, I elected to race with stock WP suspension settings, a stock engine and stock exhaust system because I have lots of experience on that bike. I knew the track wouldn’t be as rough as an AMA National, so I knew I could get away with stock valving. The only change I made was switching out the Neken bars that come stock on KTMs for Husqvarna-bend ProTapers, which, you guessed it, come stock on Huskys. That bar is slightly lower and wider than KTM’s Neken bars, and it has better flex characteristics. It’s not a huge difference, but I do prefer it.

Saturday was our fourth day in Austria, and we were beginning to adapt to the time change, so we used it as a rest day. KTM’s in-house American test rider, Ryan Morais, was with us in Austria. Ryan and I went for an electric mountain bike ride with Micky Staufer in the morning. It was great to experience the local trails, and we even got to ride the bicycles past the local motocross track in Mattighofen, which was ultra-tight and rocky. 

In the afternoon, we went to the Mehrnbach National track to check in at registration and watch the local racing. I’ve met lots of KTM test riders and engineers at Glen Helen when they have come over for test sessions or for the World Vet Championship. One of them, Guenter Schmidinger, was racing on Saturday. And since he was going to be my mechanic at Sunday’s Austrian National, I had to cheer loudly for him! I embarrassed him a few times with my aggro cheering tendencies, but he won his races and we all had fun. Saturday was my first impression of what to anticipate on Sunday, and it exceeded my expectations. Of course, I knew the track would be beautiful, as it was laid out on a nice hill with a great layout, but I was surprised to see so many people racing, many of them people I had met during our factory tour. I also didn’t expect to see a beer trailer set up all the way on the far side of the track. Why did that stand out to me? Because to buy a beer, the spectators could avoid the lines at the closest beer tent and hike all the way around the track to get to the distant one. Once I saw that a path was roped off for spectators to walk the entire perimeter of the track and buy drinks while doing it, I realized this event was bigger than I expected. 

It was nice to be able to hang out at the track on Saturday without riding myself, because I was able to soak in the experience of visiting a new track in a new country. Andy Jefferson, the Media Relations Manager for KTM, Husqvarna and GasGas, and a former AMA pro racer himself, was our chaperone on the trip. He, along with Micky and Ryan Morais, walked the track with Dennis, Josh, Trevor and me. While out there, Micky explained how the event worked. The Mehrnbach National track, officially named the HSV Reid track, is a club, and, because of that, all the members are required to volunteer to help run events at the track throughout the year. Mehrnbach is one of the closest tracks to the KTM headquarters, and because (from what we’re told) it’s one of the best tracks in Austria, 90 percent of the club members are KTM or WP employees who ride and race themselves. 

Manfred Edlinger, the head of motocross development, was our guide during our tour of the KTM factory, so we were surprised to see him flagging at Saturday’s race (his son would be racing in the 85cc class on Sunday). Everywhere we went at Saturday’s race, we ran into KTM employees that we knew or just met three days before. For example, Robert Jonas is a former MXGP racer and the head of motorsport off-road for the KTM group worldwide. He was racing on Saturday (and he was fast!). Florian Bretterebner, the chief engineer for the 250/350 engines, was a flagger at the race on Saturday. The beer trailer (not the one on the far side of the track, but the one next to the concession stands) had five guys operating it. Two of them were WP employees, and the other three were KTM employees. Of course, MXA interacts with lots of people who work for KTM USA, and I know that everyone in the California office is passionate about the brand and most of them ride or race. But, I was not prepared for what I witnessed in Austria. I kept expecting to find Stefan Pierer dropping the gate for each moto. 

From my perspective, KTM Austria is one big family, especially the R&D group. They work hard during the week. They ride together on the weekends. They volunteer to help run their local track, and they are constantly riding and racing pre-production bikes and testing yet-to-be prototypes. Being at the track and hanging out with everyone on Saturday really helped connect the dots for me. On race day, I’m too focused on the task at hand to take in the atmosphere, but on Saturday I soaked in watching the guys we met at the factory race and hang out at their local track.

I felt great on the stock KTM at the practice track on Friday, and I was hoping to feel the same at Sunday’s race. On Sunday morning, we had a 15-minute “free practice” and then a 15-minute timed qualifying session for gate pic, before the two 30-minute-plus-one-lap motos. Straightaway, I was having a blast on the track. The dirt was prepped and watered perfectly, with great traction and a few good ruts in each corner. The finish line jumped onto the start straightaway, which was a long downhill into a relatively tight off-camber right-hander with only a small berm on the exit.

The start was at least as long as Glen Helen’s, only the first corner couldn’t have been more different from Glen Helen’s steeply banked Talladega first turn, as it was a downhill. It was difficult to gauge when to hit the brakes, but luckily they ripped the start deep, so my stock Brembo brakes worked exceptionally well. There were other off-camber corners, some fun jumps and good ruts. The track wasn’t too rough for qualifying, and I laid down a few fast laps, scoring 11th quickest on time, with Ryan Morais 13th and Michael “Micky” Staufer 14th. I was definitely a little more nervous after qualifying! We flew a long way, and a lot of local fans were expecting the Americans (Ryan and I) to put on a good show.

IT WAS NICE TO BE ABLE TO HANG OUT AT THE TRACK ON SATURDAY WITHOUT RIDING MYSELF, BECAUSE I WAS ABLE TO SOAK IN THE EXPERIENCE OF VISITING A NEW TRACK IN A NEW COUNTRY. 

After qualifying, we had a start practice like they do at the AMA Nationals, and it was another good gauge for learning how long you could go before hitting the brakes on the wide-open downhill start. My practice starts weren’t so good, though. I was slow off the line. I used map 1—the white map—because the track wasn’t deep, and I wanted the mellower power. But, after analyzing the videos that my mechanic Guenter Schmidinger took of my starts, we weren’t looking good! Guenter had me switch to the green map. He gave me his fork guard with the holeshot device set at 165mm, which was much lower than the 120mm I had, and he told me to hold it wide open off the line. Even though the dirt behind the gates looked dry, he explained that it had a deceiving amount of traction. In between qualifying and the motos, we had a long break. Micky whipped up some pasta and meat sauce on an auxiliary stove that he brings to the track every day in his Sprinter, and it was amazing! We had pasta and sauce at the track on Friday, and Micky stepped it up even more for race day by adding some ground beef to the sauce. 

Although this wasn’t an FIM race, they used the FIM rules where mechanics are not allowed to go with their riders to the starting line. We left our bikes in the staging area and found a gate to pack ourselves. After the sight lap, we returned to the staging area. Then we were sent through the gate one by one, by qualifying time, to ride to our chosen gate. Since I qualified 11th, that was my gate pick for both motos (no matter how I finished in the first one), which makes qualifying more important. Because I didn’t watch any starts before my moto, I asked the rider next to me on the line how long they wait from when the 30-second board girl turns it sideways to when the gate drops. He said 5 to 10 seconds, and that was helpful! Using Guenter’s lower holeshot device, with the throttle almost wide open (like he told me), I launched off the line with an amazing jump and absolutely crushed the start, probably better than I’ve ever done before! I had a huge holeshot and came into the first turn about as hard as you can possibly be on the brakes without crashing. It was one of the best feelings in the world to nail the start and lead a full pack of 35 riders around. Gunter has raced this track for years, and he had given me lots of tips for line choice to make sure nobody would pass me. 

Because the track wasn’t nearly as rough as an AMA National, I was able to hold off the hard-charging riders behind me for almost 10 minutes! My smile got bigger with every lap. After qualifying 11th, I didn’t expect to be leading, and I was proud of myself. At the 10-minute mark, I slipped back to second and was passed by Marcel Stauffer, who had finished in the top 10 in both motos of the German MXGP race a couple of weeks earlier. Then third got me quickly, and I eventually finished sixth after 35 minutes of racing. I was stoked! It was a hot day in Austria, with temps in the 90-degree range, and I put on a good showing for MXA. I held my own against Austria’s best, and it felt good. 

THE START WAS AT LEAST AS LONG AS GLEN HELEN’S, ONLY THE FIRST CORNER COULDN’T HAVE BEEN MORE DIFFERENT FROM GLEN HELEN’S STEEPLY BANKED TALLADEGA FIRST TURN, AS IT WAS A DOWNHILL.

If you’ve been to Europe, you know how hard it is to find cold drinks. Ice and cold water aren’t popular overseas, and I thought I would be okay until I pulled off the track after the first moto and was dying to cool down. Thankfully, we had a pressure washer, and Josh Fout rinsed Micky, Ryan and me off all at the same time. It was a funny look for Team USA/KTM R&D. Ryan finished eighth, with Micky in 11th. And yes, both of them are over 40 years old, and they still rip on two wheels. Ryan still rides Supercross to help the factory Red Bull KTM team test its race bikes, and Micky has been the Austrian National Champion more than a few times. To put it in perspective, Micky was faster than I was in a lap-time battle at the X Bowl Arena track on Friday. In my eyes, he rips!

In addition to the track not being as rough as an AMA National, the break between moto one and moto two is also much longer than it is at the U.S. Nationals, which of course helped me recover more. We had over two and a half hours between our races, which is a full hour longer than I had at Pala, Hangtown and Thunder Valley earlier this year. 

When it came time to drop the gate for moto two, I made the costly mistake of looking at the gate too long, and it dropped earlier than I anticipated. One of my strategies on the start is that I make sure I’m not staring at the gate too long before it drops, because your reactions gets slower the longer you stare at it. Well, this time I waited too long, and the gate dropped earlier than it did in moto one. I was slow off the line, and I got buried on the start. It was chaos, as it usually is when you get a bad start. I was in 18th place, but I started making moves. Once again, I was really proud of how I rode and followed Guenter’s helpful line advice to the letter. I was able to pass my way into the top 10 fairly quickly and then marched forward to cross the line in sixth again at the finish. 

To cap off an amazing week in Austria, the race promoter ordered pizza and had it delivered to the track after the spectators had drifted away. We had at least 30 people, most of whom were KTM employees, hanging out after the race. It was a blast to talk about the race, especially my holeshot, and continue learning more about the people who worked for KTM and their lifestyles in Europe. Dennis Stapleton has raced in over 40 different countries around the world, so I think it was weird for him to not race but just tour around and hang out for the weekend. Josh Fout had only one other experience in Europe prior to this trip, and this was Trevor Nelson’s first time out of the United States. He thoroughly enjoyed it.

MXA has blessed me with many opportunities that I would never have had otherwise, and I try not to take that for granted.The overarching theme that played in my head all week was KTM’s slogan “Ready to Race.” It is much more than a marketing term; it’s a mantra that rings true when you meet the people behind the brand. Although we split this Austrian trip up into two separate articles (and two videos on YouTube), this race was a natural extension of our factory tour at KTM. All the people we met in the workshops on Wednesday and Thursday were the same people at the races on the weekend. From the outside looking in, I’ve seen the exponential growth of the Pierer Mobility Group, which usually causes a brand to neglect its first love, so it was nice to see that at the core of it all, they haven’t changed. KTM is more passionate and focused than I ever expected.

We have to thank everyone at KTM for being so nice, friendly and helpful. The MXA wrecking crew had a wonderful time in Mattighofen.

 

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