I was having a hunt around and came across this old photo from about 93/94 from a trial in Canungra, Qld. I remember the day well - my old man and my mates old man were competing on a TY175 and a Fantic. Steffan Merriman came along to flash the TYZ which had just been released and he did a bit of a demo. Afterwards, he handed out Yamaha caps to all the kids and Trail & Track magazine took this photo which was featured a few months later. This was back when i and most of the others in this photograph were starting out on minibike. Some of those in this photo who were able to commit fully to the sport for all these years are now riding A-grade and such, see if you can pick them. Unfortanately i became obsessed with cars and girls and got out of the sport for a number of years :)
Ok from the bike being the first model TY250Z the photo is from 1993 and what a legend that Stefan is. I've watched him ride the later TY250Z at an Aussie Titles at Mt Tamborine, watched him flog around Conondale on a TTR250 in the Thumper Nats, and his ride at the A4DE on a second-hand WR200R was stunning. I've also been lucky enough to have ridden in 2-day Enduros in Queensland in the late 1990s with him and he is totally amazing to watch - breathtaking. I remember in about 1999, Stefan was disillusioned with the way trials at the top level in Europe was being run and decided he would pursue something where he had a fair go at a world title. He wanted sponsorship from his favourite brand (Yamaha) to ride the world enduro series, but somehow it fell through. He had said that he was confident of becoming a world enduro champion in his first year and was given a go by Husqvarna and went right out there and of course is now a multi-time world champ in that field.
The only people I might have recognised in that photo - and I may be way off here because I didn't meet either of them till they were quite a bit older; I think the uphill black shirt kid might be Kale Reed. The kid sitting out front in the plain white T shirt might be Daniel Schieder.
I was there that day but was only nine, but i still remember him attacking the rock at that property on a later date that im sure to this day has never been done agian.
