The first two races of the 2012 Enduro World Championship have taken place in Chile. Four racers riding bikes equipped with Akrapovič exhaust systems took the highest podium positions in the E1, E2, and Junior classes.
 
The first of eight two-day Enduro World Championship events took place in western South America, near Talca, Chile. We were eagerly awaiting these races because there were some significant transfers between the teams over the winter. The result? The KTM Enduro Factory Team took last year’s world champion Antoine Meo under its wing, which was obviously a wise choice because he won both races in the E1 class with a dream start to the season. His weapon: a KTM 250 EXC-F equipped with an Akrapovič exhaust system.
 
Another new member of the KTM team, Christophe Nambotin, won two victories in the E3 class, taking twenty points each time. After the first race he was joined on the podium by third-ranked Oriol Mena (Husaberg), and after the second race by his teammate David Knight, who appears to have recovered from last year’s hip injury. After the first two races, Nambotin and Knight hold first and third places in the overall E3 class rankings.
 
In the E2 class, Pierre-Alexandre Renet on a Husaberg earned a victory for Akrapovič in the second race (he now holds third place in the overall standings), and in the Junior class Mathias Bellino on a Husaberg was a standout for earning a perfect score.
 
So, racers riding machines with exhaust systems sporting the red scorpion took seven first-place wins in the first eight races. Congratulations, and keep it up!
 
The world championship caravan remains in South America: the battle with the terrain will continue on 31 March and 1 April in Argentina.
 
Photo: Edmunds J. KTM Images