03 – Day 1 Wednesday – Scotty Huggins – Sunraysia Safari 2025

We got a brand new setup this year. New bike, uh, new tower, new mat reader, everything, even new rear suspension. We've spent a bit of time doing a lot of R&D, um, which has helped a lot. And, yeah, hopefully put in a good show. I don't know what was wrong with that old bike. I just seem to not gel well with it. And it used to just chuck me for no reason. And I had three big accidents over two, three years. And as soon as I gave that bike away, I've been riding well ever since. I was riding well on the old bike too, but it just used to just peg me for no reason. And you know, it is always a bad day. About 2 years ago, I started decided to start a podcast and, uh, I've been interviewing a lot of riders, um, guys that been to Dhaka, but also a lot of doctors and scientists and things as well, which is, um, really good. realistically anyone who's a bit of a heretic I would say you know so yeah I really enjoy that but also we've been doing bike documentaries too I mean really what we've been doing is we go on adventure rides and it's always a disaster and so we just decided to start filming it and it's been a pretty comical Scott >> what are you doing >> uh series >> it wasn't right I'll just be >> this event is going to be a bit different than last year hopefully last year I uh I got I was doing well I was in second third place outright um and I just got lost just in one section there. Um, and I end up back about 13 minutes on the podium. Um, in my class it ended up being cuz I was lost so long. Um, and then the next day I took it pretty easy. I wasn't trying to ride too crazy cuz I knew that I was already bit rattled and my bike chucked me um into the marathon stage and I ended up um I partially collapsed one lung. I end up knocked out for about 5 minutes. Um I had a bruised um hip and pelvis. Um they thought I'd broken it, but I hadn't luckily. Um and they thought I had a broken sternum as well, but luckily I was all good. And realistically, I put that down to my airbag saving me. I think everyone should be running airbags. The new uh Alpine Star airbag system is compulsory at Dak. It's not compulsory here at this race, but I would recommend everyone getting an airbag. They have saved me multiple times now. Really good for in big crashes. So, you basically have a vest and it knows somehow with black magic that it uh that it deploys before you hit the ground basically. Um, and when you have an accident, it really saves you. Like I've not been injured from the crashes I've had because of that airbag.