The new Hard Enduro World Ranking (HEWR) is launching on February 1 with a whopping $100,000 of prize money for riders as new ATP-style ranking system goes live.

There’s a lot going on in the world of Hard Enduro right now, isn’t there? US Hard Enduro kicked off in style last weekend at King of the Motos, then came the bombshell from the world championship rider’s association, WERA, and that was promptly followed by a clarifying statement from the Hard Enduro World Championship in a bid to calm the waters.

Just as we are getting our heads around WERA, HEWR, HEWC and WTF, a press release lands from Austria on a Friday evening (sadly, not the first…), just as we had cracked open an end of the week beer, reminding us the Hard Enduro World Ranking system goes live on February 1.

That's not the big news story though, the part riders will be interested in is that prize pot of $100,000.

What the heck is HEWR?

Well, Enduro21 covered it a little earlier during 2025, but it is a proposed standardised points system for extreme and hard enduro races, bringing results across all major international races – including the Red Bull Erzbergrodeo and Red Bull Romaniacs – together to create a world ranking system much like that in professional tennis (ATP).

This news comes on the back of a busy week in the world of hard enduro and the world championships. In theory, this all stands independently from the noise around the Hard Enduro World Championship and the rider’s revolt announced by WERA.

More on those stories here: Hard Enduro Promoters Stand Firm on 2026 World Championship Calendar Amid Rider Dispute

Hard Enduro World Championship Calendar Bombshell from WERA – “we’re only racing six rounds”

$100,000 prize money for the HEWR Top 10

Participation in the Hard Enduro World Ranking is free for all Premium, Master and Challenger racing events in the 2026 season, while Supreme events, including Erzberg and Romaniacs, will pay a participation fee of USD 25,000.

That’s how they get the prize money, using the proceeds of the fee “used exclusively for the transparent financing of the administration and further development of the system”, as well as for the distribution of prize money at the end of the season.

The prize money of $100,000 will be distributed to the 10 most successful riders of the season from a prize money fund fed by industry partners on the cut-off date of February 1, 2027.

Riders, organisers, and industry in the loop

At the heart of the Hard Enduro World Ranking (HEWR) is a group of people who will be responsible for ensuring that the ranking system is fair and transparent.

Who are they? Representatives of the WERA (World Enduro Rider Association), the top 100 HEWR riders, registered race organisers, representatives of leading motorsport associations, and industry partners of athletes or events with a minimum investment of $50,000.

HEWR working group say they will hold an annual general meeting at which its representatives will be elected or re-elected.

What’s all this about?

The slightly mysterious people behind this are aiming to stand apart from the Hard Enduro World Championship, inviting event organisers to register themselves and create their own Hard Enduro World Ranking points system.

Events such as Red Bull Erzbergrodeo or Red Bull Romaniacs are behind this and stand out as the most successful and populated hard enduro races on the planet but they want to include more in this “Supreme, Premium, Master and Challenger” events ranking system.

They point out it gives riders the opportunity to measure themselves directly against the world's best and position themselves internationally – regardless of their affiliation with various associations, championships, or domestic series.

Obviously it requires the event you’re racing and the event organisers of that event to have registered themselves and paid up.

Live on February 1

Starting February 1, the Hard Enduro World Ranking (HEWR) goes live and they say organisers of Hard Enduro races can register to participate in the ranking programme.

The requirements for successful registration are very simple: the event must be declared a Hard Enduro event, which means that its course must be significantly different from Motocross and Classic Enduro, with a correspondingly more technically demanding route. Registration is completely independent of membership in various associations, championships, or racing series.

Accepted registered events will be divided into those four categories according to clearly defined criteria: sporting standards, number of participants, number of nations represented, number of scoring days, prize money, and international media coverage. Classification will be reviewed annually, meaning events can be upgraded, downgraded, or even suspended.

Transparent, ATP-like ranking system

The scoring system, which is based on the ATP/WTA world rankings in tennis, was created by Karl Katoch (organiser of Red Bull Erzbergrodeo) and Martin Freinademetz (organizer of Red Bull Romaniacs) and intended to “enable transparent, global comparability of the performances of international hard enduro athletes”.

Similar to the tennis system, riders can participate in any number of races per season and collect HEWR points. After each event, the rankings are automatically updated and published online.

The number of ranking points that a rider can earn at each race event varies depending on the category:

• Supreme race winners 2,000 ranking points
• Premium winners 1,200 points
• Masters 500 points
• Challenger 250 points
• A total of 500 participants per race will receive ranking points

More rules explained

Each race promotor will be responsible for uploading the results within 48 hours of the end of the race. Supreme events must be uploaded within one hour of the official results being announced.  

Each race promotor determines ranking classes for their event (pro level, amateur level, senior classes, gold, silver, bronze, etc.) or the compilation of results from potentially multiple event days are converted into an overall ranking.

The points system used must be specified when registering for the Hard Enduro World Ranking and cannot be changed afterwards. Only one overall result per event can be counted.

More information: www.enduroworldranking.com