Results from the 2024 Red Bull Erzbergrodeo, Hard Enduro World Championship round two, prologue – Josep Garcia storms to the fastest overall time on day one of the prologue runs.

Erzberg prologue day one in a nutshell:

• With the madness of the Rocket Ride hillclimb out the way yesterday, the entire near 1400 rider entry rolled up to the start line of the Iron Road Prologue today, Friday in Eisenerz, Austria.
• A tweaked prologue course to previous editions (due to the ever-changing shape of the Iron Giant) saw riders start from the familiar ledge of the quarry face, blast the couple of uphills before the seemingly endless snaking through rocky gulleys mixed with flat-out wide and open mine roads went up and then back downhill a little on a 12.2km/7.6mile course.
• Over 1000 metres up in the Styrian mountains means weather can obviously play a role and, on day one, it was a bit of luck how you caught the rain: from how long you had to wait in line for your start position in it, how heavy to was on the course and how invisible some of the track got due to cloud on the course (a rider like Australian Hard Enduro rider Anthony Solar suffered badly here due to his start number).
• Fortune fell on the early riders away then who had a much drier course and began as only light rain was falling. Taking advantage of that best of all was the current EnduroGP points leader, Josep Garcia, who clocked in at 10:19s for the fastest time by 30 seconds. His top speed recorded by his team was 155kmh...
• Garcia will go again tomorrow but the Red Bull KTM rider is not heading into the main race, like many factory KTM riders before him, he’s only here for the prologue glory this year on the 350 EXC-F.
• The Erzberg prologue often throws in a wild card finisher and Chris Gundermann is that guy this year, clocking second fastest time in 10:49.
• Dominik Olszowy is the next of the Hard Enduro World Championship regular riders home in P3 and ahead of a stacked field all bunching up on time.
• Wade Young is four seconds back from Olszowy, Mani Lettenbichler is on the same second as Young, Teo Kabakchiev is a further second adrift.
• Jonny Walker, Trystan Hart, Michael Walkner and Valentino Hutter complete the top 10 on day one as riders aim for a top 50 position and that all important front row start.
• Missing from that top 10 was Cody Webb who reportedly caught his knee badly on his run. The Sherco rider finished but was taken to hospital for a check-up after returning to the paddock.
• One old goat to another and Graham Jarvis who was in bouyant mood after finishing 35th. The five times winner had to contend with row two last year but was happy to make it provisionally on the front row, giving him a much better chance for the main race. 
• Antoine Meo went fastest in the big, twin cylinder class on the Ducati and Sandra Gomez claimed the quickest provisional time in the female category. 
• Pol Tarres was third in the twin cylinder class on his Yamaha Tenere and also 66th on a YZ250 having made two runs today. The rule is if you want to race the main Hare Scramble you have to complete the prologue on the same bike. Pol is hedging his bets this year...

Top 50 Results (these are provisional and will update):

Live timing and full results are here: www.ebrtiming.motorradreporter.com/checkpoint/1

Photo Credit: Red Bull Content Pool + Future7Media | Andrea Belluschi