Red Bull City Scramble – bigger and better

On 1st April 2012, two and half years after the inaugural Red Bull City Scramble was held in Auckland, the event was back in a new location at T Pier in Westhaven. The pier was magically transformed into an impressive arena for the event with tonnes of rocks, dirt, logs, concrete and tyres brought into the inner city location to create an Enduro-cross track. The track was set up to cater for 80 riders to battle it out, and for more than 10,000 spectators to get close to the action.

Red Bull combined both natural obstacles, likely to be found in the forests and mountains, with less typical enduro obstacles inspired by ‘city concrete jungle’ man-made features that pushed both rider and machine, thrilling the tightly packed course crowd. With safety a high priority for the organisers, CSP’s Hire division was once again asked to supply the 300 plus barriers used to outline the course.

“This year we had more competitors, a longer track, more spectators, considerably more obstacles and features and a new location,” said Brendan Thomas, Sports Marketing Manager for Red Bull New Zealand Ltd. “CSP did a great job for us in 2009 with good quality equipment and service so we had no hesitation in using their barriers again this year.”

“There were considerably more TL-1 Plastic Barriers required this year - 389 in total - as the course was quite a bit longer,” said Mario Bennett, Hire Sales Engineer for CSP. “We installed all the barriers in plenty of time and once the event was over we uninstalled and removed them the next day. We also were asked to supply one of our new Variable Message Signs (VMS) at the event which featured the Red Bull symbol.”

The final was eventually won by Graham Jarvis (UK) who took home the $5000 cash prize with Paul Bolton (UK) in second place. Course designer and New Zealand Enduro champion Chris Birch finished a credible third after having a bad run out of the starting gate.