Ed: This is the first race report of the season for Guy Giroux, the official BMW Canada rider for the Canadian and Quebec Enduro Championships.

I have left Guy's report as he wrote it, adding only where more clarity was needed. Guy is a very funny story teller - Enjoy!


This week end was the opening of the season in Quebec for me. Every year the first race is always a stress factor for me: Who is gonna go fast, did somebody train harder than me (I really doubt that one..), will there be any quick visitor, is all my stuff ready???

I was ready, and my bike was ready at 80%. I'm still testing suspension set-up, and still working on a quicker refuelling system. The Granby trail is the tightest of the season, so I knew it would probably be the toughest one for me all year, and the forecast was for rain all week-end long....

Left here on Saturday morning, only to encounter my first trouble 15 min from here, when my metal gas can got sucked out of my pick up bed and under the trailer without a noise (???) then it got stuck between both axle, sending a wall of spark behind the trailer that mixed with the rest of fuel in it must have provide a nice pyrotechnic show for the following cars.... Anyway, I was able to take it out and off we go.

Got there pretty early and unloaded my beast, lots of people came to see it , and the famous quote is now "It looks heavy". Hopefully by next race they will find something nicer to say about it....


Now to the race, first was the Saturday extreme-cross, which the rain made really gnarly, wet logs and tractor tires mixed with mud doesn't make for good traction, Good thing I had my New DUNLOPS, Then I saw a Visitor; Brian W from Ontario was there to race us, I've never raced against him and it would be a good test for the upcoming national. So I lined-up for the qually and rode like a sheep, crashing 3-4 times in the tractor tires, so off to the lcq (Last chance qualifier) I was. In there I tried riding smoother and still crashed twice but won....by then I was pretty pissed, I calmed down and decided to go slow in the main. I got a bad start and followed everyone for a lap, then they all start making mistake... I was already in third by lap 3, caught up to Brian and he made a mistake but blocked me, I put a feet down threw my bike for a complete donut to be able to pass the stalled Brian , got in second and then the leader did a mistake and I flew by him, and stretched my lead by almost half a lap, I was pretty happy with the lead, and off to my trailer I was to clean the bike up for the next race...

Sunday morning nobody said anything about my bike being heavy.... which was good!!  Got Flexi (Guy's better half! Ask Guy how the nickname thing happened!) ready for her race and watched her ride smoothly into survival mode to a third place...

For my race it was now 3-4 degrees C, cold, raining a little bit - everything to make a shitty day, But I was ready ,Got an Ok start, around 10th, and I attacked too hard and did a mistake in a rut that made me loose more spots, went for it again this time all the way to second by the lap end. Brian was leading so I tried passing him as his pace was a little slower, but he stayed smooth sticking to his pace, by then we caught traffic and he let me by knowing people moved over easier when they hear a 4 stroke, I tried gapping him but crashed in the mud, then re-attacked and passed him again, I tried gapping him again but crashed again.... Insert the last part 3-4 more times and it was time for refuelling.