When one thinks of a motorcycle race, even an off-road challenge, most spectators would assume that any event they are attending will end at a decent hour and let them head to a favorite watering hole to discuss the day, or weekend, and the results. The Swedish enduro event Novemberkåsan is not that kind of race; it is an all-day-into-the-next-morning extreme endurance test of riding skill like few others on the planet. This competition has been around since 1915, has been hosted 84 times (there were some off-years), and is held in November (as the name implies) every year outside the city of Gävle on the eastern coast of Sweden – a little over 300 kilometers north of Stockholm. The weather is most certainly an obstacle at the event as the course is often muddy, snow and ice-covered, and very cold. And, one more thing, you only take home the “Kåsa” trophy after you have won this event three times!
The 2010 Novemberkåsan, 20 – 21 November, was just as advertised – an 8:30 start time with the main event beginning at 17:00 and finishing sometime around 2:00 (in the AM) the following day. Throughout the day, races are held in conjunction with the usual intense enduro tests and, when every rider has finished, the times are totaled up to determine the overall winner. Short breaks are scheduled, but there is little rest for those competing, and then they are called to line up for the evening’s main event and the final test.
Husaberg’s Joakim Ljunggren was on a serious march to the top with times which amounted to a lead of over 17 minutes when the final totals were announced. It was also the first time he rode on the new Husaberg TE300 in a big race like this one, and the machine performed flawlessly. Ljunggren won every single stage during the daylight hours, but the real event was yet to occur. Once he began the race, it was evident to the crowd and the competitors that no one could keep his pace. Ljunggren stayed in front of his rivals, Kawasaki’s Björne Carlsson and Yamaha-mounted Mats Nilsson, and took about 1 minute on them in every stage. It was a dominating performance from an incredibly strong racer.
Ljunggren was not new to the Novemberkåsan, and in fact has actually won the event two other times previously in 2007 and last year. That meant that the young Swede could finally take home the Kåsa trophy and put it in a place of honor among his many other awards. In the 84 times that this race has been run, only 13 times has the trophy been allowed to leave with the winner. Congratulations are due to both Husaberg - and their TE300 - and Joakim Ljunggren for standing at the top of the podium in one of the most difficult motorcycle racing events the world has witnessed.
