Diener wins leg 4 of Australasian Safari

Leg 4 was characterised by soft sand and fast gravel trails which were obviously to Diener's liking, as he recorded the fastest time on each of the day's three stages, including a final stage soaked by rain, to win ahead of Honda's Jacob Smith, with Todd Smith third. Over 662 kilometres, leg 4's course covered a loop around Laverton in the WA goldfields region, on the edge of the Great Northern Desert.

"Today was pretty fast and the navigation wasn't too tricky," Diener said after his first leg win of the Safari.
"We caught a bit of rain, there were pools of water on the track but this didn't cause any problems. The bike is going well, which helps!"

The Smith brothers also enjoyed the sandy tracks and fast pace and are enjoying both being on the same team this year.
"Today was fun, I enjoyed it," Todd said.
"I like going fast. The only downside is it's hard to increase lead-time when the navigation is easier.
"I'm happy to have a bit of a gap now that we're over half way so I can ease off a bit."

Todd's brother Jacob also had a good day.
"It was a bit tricky at the start, but after that the navigation was straightforward.
"It's heaps better this year being in the same team as my brother Todd as we can help each other out.
"Todd is in the hot seat and the race is really his to lose now," he said.

Rod Faggotter finished fourth on the leg and managed to hold onto fourth overall despite breaking his hand on leg 2. Dakar champion and first-time Safari entrant Cyril Despres finished seventh for the leg and is still getting on top of the Safari's different style of racing.
"This is not the race I was expecting and I am taking it like a training day - not pushing to ride as fast as possible. I enjoyed the sandy tracks and was able to test the bike a bit," Despres said.

Italian Manuel Lucchese (Husaberg), Matt Fish (KTM) and Ivan Erceg (Honda) showed good pace, all finishing inside the top ten for the leg, while Damien Grabham was on track for a similar result before he lost 15+ minutes on leg 4's wet final stage.

At the end of leg 4, Todd Smith still holds the overall lead, by just under 10 minutes from his brother Jacob. Diener's top performance in leg 4 moves him to third, less than 30 seconds behind Jacob Smith on overall time. Fourth is Faggotter, followed by Despres. Grabham retains sixth overall, followed by Ben Williams (Honda), David Schwarz (Husaberg), David Geeves (Honda) and Russell Scoble (Honda) completing the top ten.

In the Quad class, the leg win went the way of John Maragozidis on his MMR Interceptor.
"Today was God's gift to quads! We had fantastic conditions and awesome tracks. I made a small navigational error that only cost a couple of minutes. I need to keep having days like today," Maragozidis said.

The field was narrowed to three after Adrian Hermsen encountered problems and failed to complete the final stage, but the biggest blow was experienced by Colin Lawson. The quad division leader heading into leg 4, Lawson's chances of victory were ended after he had mechanical issues on the second stage and was not able to complete the leg. The time penalty has put Lawson more than three hours behind Maragozidis, a devastating blow for the 2010 Safari quad champion.

The Australasian Safari travels south to Leonora for leg 5, the second last stop on the seven-day endurance race.