The Wildwood Rock Extreme Enduro has never been kind, and that’s exactly why riders keep coming back. Every year, the Victorian property turns sadistic: slippery boulders, axle-deep ruts, man-sized logs and climbs so rude they should come with a warning label. Across its history, Wildwood has built a reputation as Australia’s most unwelcoming one-day torture test, a race that rewards equal talent, toughness and the willingness to suffer for hours on end.
In recent years the event has delivered everything from biblical rain to blinding dust, with winners carving their names into Australian hard-enduro folklore. In 2023, it was Beta’s Ruben Chadwick who mastered the carnage and in 2024 he did the same in what many called the smoothest ride of his career.
So when the 2025 Wildwood Rock event rolled around, nobody expected things to get easier. If anything, the legend of the race had grown – more carnage, more industry attention, and a rider list stacked with talent hungry to etch their name into the Wildwood story. This year’s edition promised something special, and the track builders didn’t disappoint. But, the weather gods did.
What went down?
This year’s Wildwood Rock delivered exactly what the event is famous for, only worse. The normally bone-dry dust bowl in northwest Melbourne was hammered by torrential rain in the Hours leading up, turning the 15th anniversary edition into a mud-slicked nightmare. What’s usually a brutal but predictable course became a constantly shifting battlefield of clay, ruts and drowned-out engines. Bikes clogged, lines disappeared, and even the pros looked human as Wildwood morphed into one of its wettest and wildest showings yet.
Sherco Australia arrived with a serious headline act in tow: the return of international hard enduro weapon Will Riordon. After a monster season overseas, finishing second in the US Hard Enduro Premier Championship and cracking the top 10 at Erzberg, Riordon rolled into Wildwood with momentum and expectation hanging off the bars. When the flag dropped for the main race, he and Wade Ibrahim wasted no time blowing the doors off the field, breaking away immediately as everyone else played survival.
What followed was a gritty, back-and-forth fistfight for the lead. The rain was relentless, turning each lap into an expedition. Circuits that normally take 30 minutes blew out past the hour mark as the two front-runners swapped lines, mistakes and the occasional wrestling match with the Victorian mud. Riders behind them were swallowed by the conditions, and by mid-race it became clear this would be a test of endurance as much as raw skill.
In the end, Riordon and Ibrahim were the only riders tough enough – and stubborn enough –to complete three full laps. Riordon took the win for Sherco, capping off his homecoming with a clinical, world-class ride in conditions that bordered on sadistic. Ibrahim pushed him all the way, while Ruben Chadwick, Houston Walters and Sherco’s own David MacDonald rounded out the top five. For the 15th anniversary of Wildwood Rock, it was a fitting reminder of why this race sits at the top of Australia’s hard enduro food chain.
We caught up with the main behind the beast, Steve Braznell to talk about this year’s event and what he has in store for future events:
Mitch: How many entries did you get this year?
Steve: We had 139 riders enter and line up.
Mitch: And was that higher or lower than previous years? Did the weather affect it?
Steve: Slightly down for seniors, but the big drop was in juniors. Last year we had close to 30 juniors. For Wildwood 2025 we had nine. All the new endorsements and extra hoops for hard enduro, separating it from enduro, has made it harder for parents. Kids used to be able to turn up under an enduro/off-road endorsement and now they need extra certification.
Mitch: That’s a shame.
Steve: Yeah. The more we can get back to “off-road is off-road” instead of defining logs vs rocks, the better.
Mitch: So the difference between the endorsements is literally: “Can you hop this log?” versus “Can you ride fast through trees?”
Steve: Pretty much. When I take the kids out for both, they ride the same course. It’s just about riding safely and confidently. The bike doesn’t know the difference.
Mitch: What’s the current junior age range?
Steve: Juniors are now limited to 12–15. MA removed 65s and anyone under 12, which also hurt entries. We’ve got little kids who would love to ride. We even modify the course for them. Watching the sport be restricted like that is tough.
Mitch: previous years you could still have under-12s on 65s racing Wildwood.
Steve: Yeah. That changed after last year.
Mitch: Let’s talk setup. How long does it take to build a course like this? What machinery and volunteers are involved?
Steve: I’ve got about five or six volunteers helping build the track. I start about three months out. This year we really rebuilt the rock garden, new spectator areas, proper fencing, and a much more technical line through the rocks. Then we work backwards from there with the machines, skid-steers, trucks, all of it. We broke teeth, burst hoses… honestly, the machines cop more damage than the bikes.
Mitch: Any brand-new sections this year?
Steve: Yeah. We did a lot of work around Chad’s Off-Road Lookout. I uncovered a heap of prickles and found a platform of rocks, so I added a gnarly new line up there. The gold riders were shaking their heads when they saw it. We also ran it in reverse this year and tightened a bunch of 10–20m sections into one crowded, technical rock ledge climb.
We kept gold and silver mostly at the top of the hill this year: more technical, less “drag race up and down the hill.”
Mitch: Was this year’s course harder, even without the rain?
Steve: Technically, yes. I aimed for shorter laps – around 25 minutes – but when the rain came in Saturday and Sunday, the laps blew out to around an hour. More water, more carnage.
Mitch: So what were conditions like on Saturday for the prologue?
Steve: Bronze prologue was wet but not heavy rain. They actually liked the low-pressure environment, no big crowd watching them over the fence. Everyone just kept pushing until they finished. Some riders were still out there long after I told them they could stop. Pure determination.
Silver and Gold did their prologue Sunday at 9am, and those guys normally rip through it in 2–4 minutes. It was a great spectacle in the mud.
Mitch: How much rain did you cop Saturday?
Steve: At least 30 millimetres.
Mitch: And the track turned into…?
Steve: A grease pit. It looked like someone painted the whole prologue with a bucket of grease know as mud. No dry lines anywhere. Once the wind came through later, it dried quickly, but for that first half of the day, it was chaos.
Mitch: What was the mood like among riders?
Steve: You could see the pain and exhaustion, but no one wanted to quit. Hard enduro riders sign up for suffering. They wanted that finisher’s medal. I buy a heap of medals because I never know how many will finish, but handing them over is the best part. Bikes might need major work afterwards, but the event is fun if you can survive it.
Mitch: Let’s talk Gold Class. What unfolded on Sunday?
Steve: I spoke to all the Gold riders before the start. We made some modifications, and everyone was confident they could stay with Will or let Will follow them. He was the “new kid” but the benchmark.
When the flag dropped, everyone expected Will to sprint first over the barrel, but Wade Ibrahim was right on him, he’s been in serious form this year. Ruben Chadwick was with them too. Then you had Houston Walters in the mix. Those four hit the key obstacles first.
Some sections required teamwork, literally pulling each other and bikes through. If someone got through clean, they were gone. By the time they reached the rock garden, they hit a brand-new Gold-only section call Bruces Aviary: a straight-up, loose-rock hill I carved out of what used to be a wall of prickles.
I got a phone call mid-race: “These Gold riders have been pushing for half an hour—what do you want us to do?”
I said, “Where are you?”
They said, “At the top.”
I said, “That’s the track. Keep going.”
They respect that. Wildwood is meant to be brutal for Gold.
Mitch:
What happened to Ruben? He was chasing the hat trick.
Steve:
Yep. But he had a rough day, damaged the bike, but still pushed on. He wasn’t far off Wade, but those small setbacks hurt. Still rode well and enjoyed himself, and finishing on the podium at Wildwood is huge.
Mitch: Craziest moment?
Steve: The prologue was carnage. Riders were using “unique techniques” sending bikes with zero regard for where they landed as long as they stayed inside the tape. Just committed to finishing no matter what. That summed up the day.
Mitch: There’s talk about Wildwood joining the Hard Enduro World Championship. What’s the plan for 2026?
Steve:
Yep, we’ve been in discussions. It’s definitely possible. Now also the addition of the world rider ranking system has been introduced, we also tick a lot of boxes going forward. If we pull it off, it would be the first Hard Enduro World Championship round in Australia. It’d be huge.
2025 Wildwood Rock Extreme Enduro – Gold Class Results:
- Will Riordon (SHERCO)
- Wade Ibrahim (HUSQVARNA)
- Ruben Chadwick (BETA)
- Houston Walters (KTM)
- David MacDonald (SHERCO)
