Beta Factory Racing’s Steve Holcombe has secured his second victory in the Italian Enduro Championship with an overall win at round three.
Fresh from his winning ride at last weekend’s Enduro World Championship, the defending Italian Enduro Champion continued his impressive form into the Arma di Taggia event to secure his second win in as many races and extend his lead at the top of the Italian championship series.
Faced with a varied set of special tests – ranging from a cross test on the beach to a rocky and technical extreme test in the mountains – the third stop of the series proved a challenging one from the off. Needing the opening lap of four to settle into things, Holcombe began to find his rhythm when he set the fastest time on the second extreme test.
A win on the second cross test moved him up into contention for the overall lead. Winning both the extreme and cross tests on lap three, Holcombe took control of the race at the starts of the fourth and final lap.
Another extreme test win, followed by a close second on the final cross test, was enough for Steve to secure the overall victory and with it he extends his lead in the championship standings to 17 points. The Italian Enduro Championship continues with round four in Pontremoli on April 14.
Steve Holcombe: “I’m chuffed to have come away with the win today after making it hard on myself this morning. I’m not really sure what was up, but I just didn’t have a great opening lap and struggled to find my rhythm. I got it together on lap two and three and when I won the second extreme test that motivated me to push hard and close the gap.
“I think the extreme test is where the race came back to me because I managed to win that test on the final two laps as well, which put me back in contention. All told, I’m delighted to have got another victory – that’s two wins from three starts in the Italian championship, which is cool. We’ve got about two weeks off now until round four, which I’m looking forward too – it’ll give me a chance to recover from what’s been a busy couple of weeks racing and allow me time to work on a few areas I need to improve on, too.”
