Despite suffering a shoulder injury, Steward Baylor finished out the day for the U.S. Junior World team. Photography by Mark Kariya
Team USA got of to a great start at the 90th International Six Days Enduro in Kosice, Slovakia. The event got underway on Monday, September 7, and the six-rider U.S. World Trophy Team, made up of Mike Brown, Taylor Robert, Thad Duval, Gary Sutherlin, Ryan Sipes and Kailub Russell, grabbed the “holeshot” and took the early lead after day one. But nipping at their heels were the eager and ramped-up Australians.
Unfortunately for the U.S. riders, they were unable to maintain their lead after the second day of competition on Tuesday and now trail the Aussies by just eight seconds.
While the Americans had a few minor setbacks on day two, the Aussies upped their game on a cool, dry day, erasing yesterday’s deficit of just under a minute and 15 seconds.
Australia’s Daniel Milner—who’s been based in South Carolina this year while racing the GNCCs—topped the field in winning the E2 class for the day. However, he still trails U.S. leader Sipes by 3.32 seconds over the two days.
In addition, after two days, Australia’s Lachlan Stanford is second in E3 behind Daniel Sanders who’s on the Aussie Junior World Trophy team.
Like Sipes in E2, Russell continued to lead E1 despite it not being one of his better days. “It started out good,” he said, “but the tracks were a lot rougher, the special tests were rougher, and I just wasn’t really feeling it all day in some of them.” Late in the day, he also twisted his knee in one test.
Despite that, however, he not only stayed at the top of the E1 standings, he pulled a little ground over Great Britain’s Jamie McCanney.
After losing Layne Michael to a broken and dislocated wrist in the first test yesterday, American fortunes in the Junior World Trophy standings didn’t look good when Steward Baylor crashed late in the day, hurting his shoulder. That evening, the team doctor took both Michael and Baylor to a local hospital for X-rays, which confirmed a second-degree AC separation in Baylor’s right shoulder. The injury will require surgery, but Baylor decided to gut it out as long as he was able and had the doc tape the shoulder and give him a shot for the pain.
“I knew it was going to be tough,” he explained. “I just kind of planned on riding to the first test and if I could make it, I was going to go [on]. I was able to make everything throughout the day.”
Despite the injury, he continued to put in decent test times. Brother Grant Baylor is the fastest of the U.S. Juniors at 11th in E2 (one spot behind Taylor Robert of the U.S. World Trophy team). Steward finished the day 43rd in E2 out of the 73 still in the running. Besides trying to ride, Steward also had to changes tires at the end of the day, but he got it done, injury and all.
Australia’s three women continued to pull away from the field in Women’s World Trophy, France solidifying its hold on second with Sweden a minute and six seconds ahead of America’s Rachel Gutish, Mandi Mastin and Jamie Wells in third.
GoFasters.com’s Reid Brown, Nate Ferderer and Brian Garrahan moved up two spots to sixth in the Club team race.
