Kooweerup motocross rider Jehi Willis performed strongly at the recent International sixday enduro in Slovakia and then jetted to the United States to compete in the Grand National Cross Country event.By Glen Atwell
JEHI Willis is roaring across Europe and the United States, competing against the best offroad motocross riders in the world.
The recently crowned Victorian offroad champion, Willis is busy living the dream of any serious offroad racer.
The Kooweerupbased rider performed strongly at the recent International SixDay Enduro in Slovakia where he helped guide the Australian Trophy Team to an impressive 11th placing against the best enduro riders in the world.
Willis started the event off with a big crash on the opening day of competition, but bounced back to finish 26th in the E2 class with another gold medal.
Willis’ performance was highlighted by a great effort on day five when he was the second fastest Australian behind current world champion Stefan Merriman.
Willis then continued to impress with an excellent 11thplace finish on the sixth day of competition.
With the European leg of his journey out of the way, Willis and his father Gary jetted to the USA where Willis contested round 11 of the prestigious Grand National Cross Country on Sunday, 23 September.
With 518 riders lining up to battle, Willis needed to dig deep to prove his worth in the tough threehour crosscountry event
After the race, Willis was in awe of the moto track.
“It was unreal. It weaved up and down in a big valley with big dropoffs and big jumps,” he said.
“The woods were well and truly rutted out, full of tree roots and muddy for the first couple of laps.”
Willis said the riders being overlapped caused problems for those setting the pace.
“Most of them wouldn’t move over and the ones that would move couldn’t because the track was very one line,” he said.
“I had numerous crashes simply from colliding with lappers.”
Willis described the start as chaos.
“I got swamped into the first turn then there was a big pile up,” he said.
“That first lap was absolute mayhem, people were going everywhere not knowing the track, because we weren’t allowed a sight lap.”
Willis finished 16th out of 32 professionals and 18th from 518 other riders.
“I had heaps of fun, I learnt a lot from just one race,” he said.
