Blood, sweat and tears are said to be the ingredients for success, especially for young motocross sportsman Mark Sternagel who has been engaged in the sport since the age of three. He’s worked his way up through the ranks since then and now at the age of 21 all his hard work seems to have paid off when the Windhoek native put his name and his country on the map over the weekend in Cape Town.
The sportsman secured second place at the Zone 7 Regional/Club MX race in the Mother City on Saturday. Sternagel is one of many Namibians who use this competition as a platform to gain exposure and build experience against a variety of competitors allowing them to build the strength and endurance and helping them to improve their time and performance in preparation for the Gallina MX 2017 Championship on 10 June.
Zone 7 is a recreational park for off-road bike and quad bike enthusiasts, which is situated off the N7 high-way on the outskirts of Cape Town. Zone 7 boasts seven tracks including the Senior MotoX Track, Kiddies MotoX Track, Enduro Loop – now 14km, RC Track and BMX Track.
Sternagel said that this year he would like to win the Gallina championship, as well as take part in the AMU Motorcross Championship, where different southern African countries will compete against one another. “It was nice to compete against someone like Anthony Raynard, who dominates the sport in South Africa. Sadly he got the upper hand at the end,” Sternagel said. “I went down (to Cape Town) to compare myself to the South Africans to see how far I’ve come and how much work I still have to do.”
Sternagel’s head-to-head competitor, Raynard who placed first has been winning awards for quite a number of years, including second place at the 125A Western Province Regional Championship in 2006, first place at the 125A Western Province Motocross Club (WPMX) Club Championship and first Open Seniors Western Province Regional Motocross Championship in 2008, first MX1 and MX2 Cape Town Motocross Championship in 2010, and first MX1 and MX2 Cape Town Motocross Championship in 2014. It’s no wonder Sternagel was proud to have competed so closely with with this fierce sportsman.
Sternagel has won ‘King of the Dirt’ in all meets this year and is fiercely determined to take the championship at the end of this year.
He says that motocross is his greatest passion. He takes a keen interest in developing the sport by mentoring young cyclists and sharing his knowledge and experience with them.
