High five for Wade Young
Despite his stunning performance, Young was characteristically modest as the significance of what he had achieved slowly began to sink in.
Wade Young of Paddock easily won the 2019 Motul Roof of Africa, bringing his overall tally to five.
The Sherco Racing rider came in to the race as defending champion and had very little trouble throughout.
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He opened up a huge lead on day one and then kept the chasing pack at bay on day two.
There had been some rain in Lesotho, but the final day was bright and sunny.
As the temperature rose, Young turned up the heat on his rivals.
Although the chasing riders managed to make up a couple of minutes, they were unable to really trouble the daunting lead he had established.
With a total race time over both days of 13:16:08, Young crossed the Thaba Bosiu finish line more than 20 minutes ahead of Scott Bouverie (Brother Leadertread KTM), with Kyle Flanagan (Bidvest bLU cRU Yamaha) a little further adrift.
Having notched up his fifth Motul Roof of Africa victory (and his third in a row), Young has cemented second place in the all-time Roof of Africa hall of fame.
He has pulled clear of Graham Jarvis (four victories) and continues to close the gap on the legendary Alfie Cox, who has nine.
Despite his stunning performance, Young was characteristically modest as the significance of what he had achieved slowly began to sink in.
“I had an awesome ride on day one and built a nice lead so that all I had to do was maintain it,” he explained.
“I made sure I stayed out of sight of the chasing pack and really had some fun on the bike. The route was awesome and very well marked which made navigation easy. Overall, I’m very happy to win my fifth Roof!”
Charan Moore of Live Lesotho said a great team had put together a superb event.
“We’re very happy that Wade has been able to make history here once again,” said Moore.
“We’re going to make sure that we take the event from strength to strength over the next couple of years and having such positive feedback from Wade will help attract even more international and local teams and riders over the coming years.”
In the silver category the winner was Ryan Pelser (Motul Alfie Cox KTM) in a hard-fought battle with Dwain Barnard (D&D Group).
Third place in this hotly contested category went to Roof veteran Bruce May (Bidvest bLU cRU Yamaha).
In the bronze category, new enduro sensation Austin Stuart (Nick’s Electrical KTM) triumphed by some margin and will tackle the silver category next year.
Second place went to Steven Carr (BrickIT KTM) with Richard Moore (Dynamic Racing KTM) taking third spot.
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