Stark Future makes a legendary showing at Red Bull Erzbergrodeo 2026 hard enduro championship.
In the world of hard enduro, Red Bull Erzbergrodeo might as well be the Super Bowl. It’s here that riders and manufacturers both come to prove themselves on one of the most grueling challenges in the sport, and for the first time in the competition’s 30-year history, electric motorcycles were finally permitted to compete alongside their ICE counterparts.
As you’d be right to expect, the folks at Stark Future happily rose to the occasion and wasted no time making headlines.
The four-day event kicked off with the “REMUS Rocket Ride,” an all-out drag race up a series of three steep climbs. When all three heats were said and done, Stark Varg EXs had completely locked out the podium, with Stark’s own racing director Sebastien Tortelli taking top honors in the first race of the weekend.
The hits didn’t stop coming.
The following days saw the kickoff of the Iron Road Prologue, with a whopping 1,500 total machines competing for starting position in Sunday’s main event. Out of those 1,500, only 500 would advance to the main event. Stark riders David Herbreteau and Marc Sans managed to secure spots on the front starting line at sixth and seventh places, respectively, while Eddie Karlsson, Toby Martyn, and Cooper Abbott finished close behind, all earning access to a front row start.
Of those 500 riders who started Red Bull Erzbergrodeo 2026 on Sunday, only 15 would ultimately finish. Two of those would be Stark motorcycles: Eddie Karlsson went on to score a top 10 finish at 9th overall, while Toby Martyn joined one of the select few to conquer the course with a 12th place showing.
Those results speak for themselves, but it wasn’t until an after-race interview that Karlsson dropped the biggest bomb of the weekend: Apparently, Karlsson destroyed his rear brake on a rock in the very first turn of the race. That means he navigated some of the steepest, loosest descents in the sport with nothing more than the front and the Varg’s regenerative braking feature.
Even if that hadn’t been the case, the weekend’s showing proves, once again, that these machines can compete and win at the highest levels in the sport against factory-supported ICE machinery. It’s also worth noting that hard enduro legend Graham Jarvis returned to Red Bull Erzbergrodeo 2026 at the ripe young age of 51 and managed to land just behind Karlsson with a 10th place overall finish aboard one of his new “Jarv-E” electric enduro bikes. In other words, 20% of the finishers were battery-powered.
We look forward to seeing what Karlsson and team are able to achieve next year with the help of a functional pair of brakes, and hope to see some new faces (and manufacturers) in the mix for 2027.
