Stefan Granquist is not your typical off-road racer. The likeable bloke from Anna Bay, NSW has been a regular top-10 rider in the Australian Enduro Championship for 14 years and, as he edges close to 40 years-old, he’s racking up more miles and race events than ever. Granquist is keeping the throttle-of-life pinned to the stopper when most riders his age have already pulled the plug on the sport.

Granquist isn’t one to pigeon-hole himself as a one-trick-pony in the realms of enduro racing. The son of two-time Australian motocross champion Pelle Granquist thinks outside the square and races any event that he thinks might be fun. In 2024 the journeyman raced the Manjimup 1500, banging ’bars with the best motocross racers in the country at what is regarded as one of the toughest motocross events in Australia.

Granquist also searched abroad for unique racing opportunities in 2024 which led him to racing in the Japan National Cross Country Season. You might think a 38-year-old self-employed carpenter should be easing back but the man himself says, “I’m still having too much fun to give it up. I work for myself and plan my own jobs and keep them at a size that are manageable and I fill in for other builders and friends which keeps it flexible. I work essentially full-time but I need to keep it flexible to go racing.”

FAMILY BUSINESS

Granquist was born in Penrith, NSW. His Swedish father, Pelle Granquist, was a force to be reckoned with on a motocross track with back-to-back 250cc and 500cc Australian motocross championships in 1978-79 to show for it.

The Granquists moved to Sweden when Stefan was seven, with young Stefan growing up racing motocross and eventually meeting his fiancé Emelie who happens to be a very handy racer herself.

“Emelie and I moved here from Sweden in 2011,” Granquist explains. “Before that I raced motocross in Sweden, racing my first pro National in 2005. I raced that until 2010, racing in Sweden, European Championships and other events. I wanted to do something different, not necessarily enduro but more exciting than just racing in Sweden. I tried racing in the European scene but it costs so much money and if I am completely honest, I wasn’t good enough to get a good ride there with sponsorship.”

“Dad has been friends with (Geoff) Ballard for a long time and Dad had been to a few races with Ballard helping (Stefan) Merriman back in 2010. I was finishing out the season in Sweden and I got Dad to ask Ballard to see if he had any positions to ride for him in 2011. It took about a month and it was all locked in and Emelie and I were on a plane headed to live in Australia within six weeks of the initial enquiry. It all happened pretty quick.

“The intention was to stay for one year and to start a cool adventure and to see what we could make out of it. That ended up being two, three, four, five years and then we decided to stay here. We do have intentions to go back to Europe at some stage, especially when considering how many years Emelie has been away from her family. But for now, we are settled here.”

CHASING THE DREAM

After 14 years of racing the Australian Enduro Championship, Granquist remains as motivated as ever to go racing. So what drives a rider to keep chasing the dream after all these years that also comes with some serious injuries?

“I do really want to get at least one individual championship but to be completely honest, that is not the driving factor. Both me and Emelie really love racing and having something to work towards. It’s something to train for, essentially, and we love the competitiveness of it even though when things don’t go your way you can get really frustrated. Racing excites us and the big thing is, we both feel the same. If one of us didn’t race or didn’t want to race any more, it would be a lot harder to keep going. Every year I think, “this could be my last year,” but I don’t want to stop. If we can get some help and stay competitive to keep going then we want to keep doing it.

With the competitive fire still burning bright, Granquist is always on the lookout for fun ways to go racing.

“The Manjimup 1500 was something I had wanted to do for years and, don’t get me wrong, it was pretty daunting to do it and I wasn’t sure at all where I was going to stack up. I was on a bike I hadn’t ridden before, being a new generation Yamaha, and I was up against some really fast competition in a motocross race. I was worried I was going to make a fool of myself. But I just had a crack and in the first moto of the day I was eighth and I was pretty happy with that.

“Emelie and I both love riding motocross tracks. It’s a core passion, I guess, and we plan to do more of it this year. Not necessarily at National level but the East Coast MX series which is based in NSW is pretty good.

JAPAN GRAND SLAM

“Emelie and I had been Husqvarna supported through KTM for a few years and at the end of 2023 we found out really late that there was no offer for 2024. It was actually a bit shocking really. We didn’t even have an option to purchase bikes at a discount. I felt like I had done something wrong and although Kyle Blunden from KTM assured me over the phone we hadn’t done anything wrong, it certainly felt like it. But what we are seeing with KTM now, I am hoping that had something to do with it because we always try to do the right thing by our sponsors.

“I bought a bike and we stayed on what we had, although Emelie bought a GASGAS later in the year but that freed us up to do what we liked in 2024 as we didn’t have any responsibilities to a manufacturer.

“One Tuesday night I was scrolling through my phone and I found messages from a Japanese journalist from years ago when he asked me back in 2015 if I wanted to come to Japan to do some races. At the time I was contracted to Yamaha and I couldn’t do anything. So out of the blue, I went on to that guy’s Facebook and I saw the first round of the Japanese Grand National Cross Country was on that weekend and I asked if he was interested in me coming over. He replied within five-minutes and within 12-hours he had everything organised for me including a Kove adventure bike to race. I thought there was a very real chance I was going to look like an idiot but I thought, why not? And I might meet some cool people.

“So a few days later I went to Japan and was running top-five until halfway through the race on this Kove rally bike on this tricky enduro track but it started over-heating in the muddy conditions so I pulled off to not destroy the bike. Which is what the importer had asked me to do. The guys that were looking after me at the race thought I could win if I wanted to come back and ride an enduro bike. So four weeks later I was back for round two on a GASGAS riding for a shop called Bivouac Osaka, and I won the round and I did two more rounds after that.”

BACK FOR MORE

Granquist isn’t one to let opportunity pass him by and he’s already been back to Japan this year to race round one of the 2025 JNCC thanks to the generosity of JNCC and the Bivoac Oasaka bike shop.

“The JNCC organiser has been paying for my flights and Bivoac Osaka supplies my bike and I stay in an apartment above the shop. They always take me sightseeing and take me for rides. It’s a really cool experience and I go for a week every time. They really look after me and the mechanic from the shop comes to the races with me and he has become a good friend.

“The JNCC make their tracks more technical than they should for the level of the riders, I believe. But they love it. The reality is there are 10 to 15 riders that are pretty fast, then it’s quite spread-out. We are usually lapping riders on the second lap, and they’re getting stuck everywhere. Some of the tracks are on ski fields and it’s just carnage. There’s people everywhere. It’s cool and it’s really fun. Every round has something different to it. The first round this year was a beach race and it was sick. I don’t know if I will do any more races in Japan this year because the man that owns the shop wants to retire.”

The Australian Enduro Championship remains a focus for Granquist and along with fiancé Emelie, the duo is racing aboard Triumph TFs in 2025 and remaining competitive in the pro ranks rather than chase an age-class title is what Granquist is all about.

“I don’t want to take anything away from anyone else, but if I was to win a Vets championship, for me, now, wouldn’t mean that much to me. I really want to win a pro class championship, and earn it. I had a cool battle with Riley McGillivray in 2023 and that would have been a fairytale for me, to finally get a win that went down to the wire. It didn’t end up in my favour but that was one of the coolest seasons I have ever had. We are really good friends and he is just about half my age. We joked about it all season and it was pretty cool. We battled each other hard but we have a ton of respect for each other. It was competitive but always friendly.”

NO EXCUSES

Maintaining a career outside of motorcycling and remaining competitive at the pro class level certainly isn’t for everyone, but not everyone is made of the same stuff, as Granquist explains.

“Emelie and I have both always worked regular jobs and raced at the same time. That doesn’t really feel like a disadvantage and I guess some people use it as an excuse, saying they can’t compete against riders that race full-time. But I have beaten a lot of guys a lot of times that race full-time. I know I can do it and I know it’s going to be very hard. Once or twice a year I have glimpses of where I can be, glimpses of being a top-five outright rider. It doesn’t happen consistently and if you do have more time to work on your craft you can do that more consistently but that doesn’t deter me. I love riding and I love racing. Even though I will stop racing at this level at some stage, fairly soon, I guess, I’ll never stop riding. One of the most fun things to do is go out riding with friends of all different levels. We do it for fun. And that’s the real enjoyment of riding, I think. Doing it with friends.”

KOOK OF THE DAY

“I love surfing and mountain biking and I incorporate that into my training. Learning to surf was a pretty humbling experience because it’s not easy. Over the years you can go to a motocross track and there’s someone riding in boots and jeans and you might think, “Go find a paddock to ride in mate. What are you even doing here?” Then when I started surfing I realised that I was that guy, only on a surf board. I love surfing and the challenge of trying to learn it. I did look like an idiot many times but I have been surfing for five years now and I love it.”