Twenty-year old Condobolin rider, Jacob Smith, has become the youngest ever winner of the Australasian Safari after dominating the seven-day event, which finished in the Western Australian gold mining city of Kalgoorlie today.
Riding a GHR Honda CRF 450X, Smith took the lead on the third of the event's 19 timed stages and finished the 3771 kilometre event 14 minutes and 18 seconds ahead of his brother, Todd Smith, riding a KTM. Defending champion, Ben Grabham, also on a KTM, was third, three minutes 30 seconds further back.
The final day of the off-road marathon saw competitors tackle two stages on a 165 kilometre loop out of the gold mining city of Kalgoorlie. Navigational skills were really tested over a number of tricky station tracks.
Ben Grabham started the event as hot favourite in the bike section after winning the past two Safaris, but his hopes of a third straight win ended on day two when he lost a rear tyre and dropped over an hour to the Smith brothers.
From then on, Jacob Smith controlled the event, and the third year apprentice linesman was elated with his victory.
"It's fantastic to beat to Ben (Grabham) as he's the best rider in Australia," Smith said. "Any time you can beat him it's a good achievement. It's my third Safari, so it's third time lucky - I was second in 2007, and had an engine failure last year."
While he wasn't the event favourite, Smith was always aiming for victory.
"I always race to win, I don't do it for second, but it was such a strong field it was always going to be tough. But after the first few days I knew I could do it."
Having his 24-year old brother in second place was an added bonus.
"We work together, even though we're on different teams, and we support each other," Smith said. "We always wanted to be 1-2, it was just a case of who was first and who was second."
Anything but a full-time professional rider, Smith will be back at work on Monday morning, less than 48 hours after his historic victory.
Swedish rider, Annie Seel, relished her first Safari experience, and reaped praise on the event and her fellow competitors.
"I think if you want to do the Dakar in Argentina then you need to do this event first as a training event," the 40-year old veteran said. "I'm going to try to sell the event back home and get more competitors for next year.
"I was particularly impressed by how fast the locals ride with the navigation. An Aussie team in the Dakar could do very well. For me, this event was as tough as the Dakar."
Final results, 2009 Australasian Safari (provisional)
1 Jacob SMITH (NSW), Honda CRF 450 X, 22h 58m 09s2 Todd SMITH (NSW), KTM 530 EXC, +14m 18s
3 Ben GRABHAM (NSW), KTM 530 EXC, +17m 48s
4 Ivan ERCEG (WA), KTM 450 EXC, +1h 58m 57s
5 David SCHWARZ (SA), Husaberg, +2hrs 32m 25s
We would like to thank the team for their all efforts, the supporters and all our sponsors for the continuing support.
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