Australian Chris Hollis had to withdraw from the second round of the Maxxis World Enduro championship opener last weekend in Spain as an illness took hold as the weekend progressed. The factory CH Racing Husqvarna rider was suffering a fever going into the weekend but as the weekend went on it got worse until he had to eventually withdraw from Sunday's second round.
"I went down with some kind of fever on Friday and basically felt worse and worse as the weekend went on," Hollis explained. "I didn’t feel too bad when I started the first day but I got worse and worse, and weaker, as the day went on."
Hollis did take to the tack for round one on the Saturday where he gutted out a solid 14th place in the highly competitive E1 class.
"I had some pretty good tests, but one big crash on the first extreme on lap one which took it out of me a bit. But after that I managed to get going ok. It was seriously tough – the tests were demanding and the time controls were also really hard. There was next to no time to take on any food or drink during the day. I got really sick on Saturday night, which meant there was no way I could ride on day two.
"I was sick five times, I was freezing cold one minute and then boiling hot the next and got about one-hour of sleep. It’s disappointing because although the first day was hard I was looking forward to day two. I learned a lot though, which is important. It was also pretty tough being right at the back of the E1 class. I’m hoping things will go better in Portugal," Hollis concluded.
