Editors note: If you were at the Western CEC races you may have noticed a wild and fast rider in the Pro class aboard a bone-stock, plain-Jane 2010 YZ450F motocross bike. Offroadmotorcycles.ca Western correspondent Kertis Broza chased down the mystery rider. BC’s Ben Rego currently sits seventh in Pro class points, and Broza’s excellent story about him should be an inspiration to us all! Dan Paris.

Rego obliterates a berm at the Penticton CEC ‘Cross test. Kertis Broza Photo

Ben Rego, Killer of Giants. By Kertis Broza.

It’s no secret the enduro racing scene in Canada is seeing a huge increase in popularity. Local hare scrambles are seeing great turnouts, and bigger events are sprouting up to accommodate the surge of interest and talent. Events like Erzberg and Romaniacs are topics of everyday conversation amongst even casual off road riders. Names like Bobby Prochnau, Mark Cahill, Guy Giroux, Shane Cuthbertson, Wojo, Ian McKill, Dillon Bucknell, Nick Schrage, Patrick Beaule, Nick and Ryan Graffunder all bring the hardcore fan visions of speed and otherworldly talent. Not your usual “Holy, that guy’s fast” kinda speed, but international level, ISDE, gotta get a picture of that guy, fastest men ever to race in this country kind of speed. Besides being the crème de la crème of off road, they all have one more thing in common…. they’ve all been beaten by Ben Rego.

Rego doesn’t race or even ride dirt bikes all that much, instead spending most of his dirt-time on a quad or in a 4x4 truck. When he does get on a motorcycle he isn’t afraid to do whatever it takes to win. Dan Paris photo.

Assigned the position of photographer for last year’s (2009) CEC western rounds in Blairmore, Alberta and Penticton, B.C., I needed to know who the fast guys were. I had the guidebook. I had numbers memorized. I knew which direction I needed to point the camera to capture the elite riders and help cover this new blockbuster event. Each lap I was floored by the raw talent of the riders. The speed they hit everything at was unlike anything I had ever witnessed before! The timing and recoveries were astounding. Each lap, however, there was one guy who seemed out of place in this whole scene. No sponsor stickers on the bike, no Riders Edge or LGS decals on the forks. Camouflaged over the boot riding pants and a jersey and helmet that weren’t even close to matching. Wearing a backpack, he looked like a weekend trail rider who took a wrong turn into the fast lane and decided to merge. I thought to myself that this kid must be one of the top guys, judging by his speed. Why had I not heard of him?

In 2009 Rego was racing a clapped out 2006 YZ450F with over 300 hours on the clock. He still ripped! Kertis Broza photo.

Fast forward to 2010. I’m able to make it to just the Sunday race in Penticton to casually shoot a few photos. Wait a sec, there’s that fast guy again! I recognize his jersey from last year! New pants, new bike, same old jersey and helmet from the previous year and the same “angry dog after the mailman” approach to the extreme test as last year and the same top-ten overall Pro result as last year. I had to dig deeper! 

It turns out Ben Rego IS a weekend warrior, from way up north in Kitimat B.C. A small, slow-moving coastal town on an inlet known more for an Alcan aluminum smelter and good salmon fishing than talented off road riders, Kitimat is a very unlikely place to source a top notch prospect like Rego. I asked what kind of background he had, because obviously he must have raced before. Rego replied, “I started racing in 06 but I had no clue I was even any good, until I raced for my first time and won.” There had to be more details than that! I had to pry out the goods. Former pro motocross experience? Never raced moto in his life. Well he must have raced a ton of hare scrambles then…. nope, a few races in the Northern zone of BC, all of which he won, and then the Canadian Enduro Championships. Huh. Must be the bike. He MUST be riding some magical setup on this bike! Wrong again. Last year he mostly rode his quad because his bone stock 2006 Yamaha YZ450F had over 300 hours on the meter (!!) and he was ‘saving’ it for the CEC races. Since he is taking it more seriously this year, he went out and bought a new 2010 YZ450F, hardly an advantage in the sea of ready-made off-road race bikes available nowadays. Common opinion would dictate any motocross bike in the top 10 have had serious suspension work and trick stuff like Rekluse clutches right? His magical setup? Aside from handguards, nothing but a bone stock motocross bike and a sticky throttle hand.

I asked Ben about his hobbies and interests, because his riding skills must have been sourced from somewhere obvious! Well, he likes mud. He has an old Toyota with a V8 crammed under the hood that he mud bogs with. He also rides his quad harder than anyone should, competing in local mud bog competitions in and around Kitimat. In the winter he throws a set of tracks on it. Checking through his personal photos I noticed most of his shots are in the truck or on the quad, with just one lonely picture of his new bike. I did find a few videos as well. Again, mostly of him on his quad, with a couple biking clips showing him climbing a long, near vertical wall of a hill with a paddle tire on his old YZ-F. I guess this all helps him hammer through the muddy tire pit and other obstacles of the extreme tests. There were a few other clips of him roosting around the mountains in the deep coastal snow with a paddle tire as well, but no racing shots. No gloating, glitz or glamour.

Most old-school enduro riders swear up and down that you need thousands of dollars worth of modifications to make a motocross bike competitive for woods racing. Rego has not only proven them wrong with his bone-stock YZ450F, he’s given the big-name Pros someone to be very afraid of if he ever gets factory-level support! Kertis Broza photo. 

You’d think hanging onto the MX-missile of a bike would require hours of training. Countless hours building the strength needed to compete at the highest level of racing. “No”, says the humble northerner, “I’ve never trained or went to the gym or anything before. I’m starting to ride my bike to work sometimes, so that should help, I guess.” 

I’d been looking for this deep background of racing, because this guy I’d never heard of just had to have an ace up his sleeve. Where’s the story? He must at least have a few small sponsors. Wrong again. Thankfully, he does get a deal on his bike from Ken’s Marine in nearby Terrace, but that’s all. There’s no fresh tires every round, no free oil and filters and no moto-clothing being pushed his way. He wore the same jersey and helmet in all the quad mud bog videos as he wore at the CEC for the past two years. Rego is a far cry from the intimidating sea of factory rider look-a-likes that crowd the start line of even the “Vet A” races I’ve been in recently. Steering stabilizers, auto clutches, the newest matching gear and the best suspension in the world are no match for raw talent, guts and a “pin it to win it” attitude.

Rego’s do or die attitude is well matched to his amazing reflexes and instinctive riding ability. Kertis Broza photo

Gunning for a podium finish in the Eastern rounds of the CEC, which he plans to attend this year, I have to wonder what his speech would sound like if he moved up two places into the fastest of the E2 class? Who do you thank when you’re a one man show? The gene pool for slamming a tsunami of talent down your throat? 

I’ll be watching the next rounds of the Canadian Enduro Championship very closely, as well as the “Xtinction” extreme enduro coming up in Alberta this August, which Rego also plans on racing. The casual fan may not know much about him, but I guarantee one thing. The top twenty fastest guys in the nation know exactly who Ben Rego is, and you can bet they’re as baffled as we are!