Page 77 - Australian Motorcycle News (January 2020)

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see the track and regularly crashed into the
scrub, having to wait for the dust to settle before
lifting my bike out.
“Then I had a big crash and lay there for 10
minutes. I’d had enough, but I had no way of
getting home if I quit. The only way was to get
on that stinking bike and continue. So I got up,
walked around in the dark until I tripped over
my bike and managed to get going again.”
Not long after an exhausted Riley arrived at
Tobermorey, the front runners were already
taking off towards Alice Springs. Eddie Hau was
not among them. Covered in blood, the BMW
rider had been medivacced to Mount Isa Hospital 4 5
with suspected head injuries. It turned out to be
a broken nose.
Lovett led Rahier off the start by a narrow 6
margin of less than four minutes, and increased
his lead by another two. Steve Chapman and
Peter McDonald were the only other riders in
contention, with Allan Cunynghame over an
hour in arrears. Needless to say no one enjoyed
the respite in Alice more than Steve Riley.
Now without a speedo, Lovett had no means
of navigation and was forced to follow Andrew
Cowan’s Pajero where, caught in its dust, he
crashed heavily. This let Rahier into the lead –
until a gibber smashed the rocker cover on the
Belgian rider’s BMW. The repair took 20 minutes,
which put Lovett back in the lead, though
oil seepage on to the KTM’s rubber cam belt
eventually terminated Lovett’s challenge.
With the final two days ahead, Rahier now held
the biggest margin in the event, over 21 minutes
ahead of Chapman. MacDonald was a further
one hour adrift. Now well above the Tropic of
Capricorn with daytime temperatures above
40°C, most competitors were in survival mode for

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