Beaten Ryan Beat beats the field at ERX

Ryan Beat did not stand atop of the podium when he won Saturday’s Championship Off-Road Pro 2 race at ERX Motor Park, but he couldn’t even if he wanted to.

The Saturday before the ERX Off-Road National, Beat broke his collarbone, tailbone, and pelvis in a dirt bike crash. Despite fears he would have to miss the weekend, he opted to take part anyway to contend for the Pro 2 championship as he and Mickey Thomas were scrapping for points. After finishing third in the first race on Friday when a flat tyre took him out while leading, he took the top spot again early on Saturday; this time, Beat’s tyres held up and he cruised to his third victory of 2024.

Afterwards, Beat was extracted from his truck by crew members, who handed him his crutches so he could walk to the podium. Standing in front of the top step as his injuries prevented him from climbing it, he referred to the win as “the gnarliest one of my career for sure.”

“Just told myself if I’m going to be dumb enough to get hurt during race season, I need to be tough enough to race hurt so here we are,” he continued. “These guys were moving. I just had to click off clean laps and only push when I absolutely had to. The jumps are what’s hurting me. Luckily BILSTEIN’s got the truck dialed in perfect to where I can jump it and still not hurt.”

Defending Pro 2 champion Cory Winner, who scaled back his calendar to a part-time slate, finished second for his first podium of the season ahead of Thomas. Beat leads Thomas by just six points. Thomas held off Kyle Greaves for third a day after the latter notched his maiden points win in the class (he won the Kyle LeDuc Memorial Cup at Antigo in June, a Pro 2 vs. Pro 4 that did not count for the standings).

Pro SPEC was a tumultuous weekend for Chris Van Den Elzen and Dylan Parsons. The latter led much of Friday’s race from the pole before the two collided mid-air on lap ten, causing Parsons to go wide into the turn. Parsons initially managed to keep the truck steady before being clipped by Nick Visser and shot into the infield, then Christopher Parrish moved up to second before retiring with a mechanical issue; this chaos allowed “VDE” to cruise to his first class win since its inaugural season in 2022 at Bark River, when Pro SPEC was only a four-driver class.

Parsons salvaged a podium in third behind Van Den Elzen and Visser. Van Den Elzen later stated Parsons is “a buddy. I don’t ever want to do him dirty or anything like that. That’s not my intent at all.”

All four drivers crossed paths again on Saturday when Van Den Elzen and Visser made contact and spun, allowing Parrish to slip by and score his third win. Parsons got back at Van Den Elzen by staving him off for second.

Adrian Cenni won the first Pro 4 race thanks to a dramatic run that moved him from fourth to the lead, capitalising on RJ Anderson and Jimmy Henderson‘s troubles for the victory. Anderson and Henderson tried to rebound the next day before they tangled, resulting in Anderson being taken out and Henderson being penalised. C.J. Greaves, who suffered some damage in Anderson’s crash, survived the chaos to win for the fourth time.

Banks Hovey, the 2022 X Games silver medalist in Moto X 110s, finished twelfth in both Pro SxS events in his maiden Championship Off-Road weekend. He filled in for Gray Leadbetter, who was unavailable for ERX as she was in Scotland for Extreme E.

Class winners

Pro

Sportsman