Kenda Full Gas Sprint Enduro is the future of dirt bike competition. Or maybe it’s the past? I’m not going to get into the weeds with the genesis of the idea, you can find an interview with the founder in American Motorcyclist magazine, but however you want to look at it, it’s a damn blast.
If you aren’t familiar with the Kenda Full Gas Sprint Enduro Series, do yourself a favor and check out some of the YouTube GoPro videos. Sprint Enduros are short sprints, each called a test, that are timed with each rider taking off individually. There are two courses: The Cross Test, casually called a grass track, is a course the winds through open fields and natural terrain; the Enduro Test is kind of a typical hare scramble/XC woods course. You alternate between each course and the rider with the lowest combined time wins.
Other than the courses just being a blast to ride (Kenda FGSE annually hosts a round on a golf course…), racing against the clock, one lap at a time without the chaos of typical bottlenecked XC races makes these types of event so much more approachable for people just getting into racing that new Covid-19 stimulus purchase. A typical laptime for an average ride hovers around 10 minutes for the Cross Test and maybe 15ish minutes for the Enduro Test. Multiply that by three tests on each course, two days in a row and you’ve racked up a lot of seat time while still being able to relax and recover between laps.
I’ve raced three of these over the last two years and hoping to do at least two more this year. Sprint Enduros are by far the most fun I’ve had on a dirt bike and I highly recommend giving them a shot.