Ryan Sipes made history by becoming the first American to not only claim the E2 victory but also win overall individual honors at the ISDE. He put a lock on it by running away with the final E2 moto with the second-fastest time of the day. (Only Italian Davide Guarneri was faster—by three seconds—in winning the E3 moto.) Photography by Mark Kariya
After losing half of its team to exclusion halfway through the week then getting them and their scores reinstated yesterday, France achieved a somewhat controversial victory in the prestigious FIM World Trophy category at the 90th International Six Days Enduro in Kosice, Slovakia.
The French have now won four in a row, though Australia gave it a great shot on the final day, its six riders slicing the deficit in half to one minute. Spain secured its second consecutive podium visit with a third place, 10 and a half minutes behind the winners.
Interestingly, the Australians were the only team in the top five to avoid having any riders disqualified on Day 3 when eight were penalized for missing an observation check.
Team USA, which started out so well by leading Day 1 for the first time in memory if not history, could do no better than 22nd out of 23 countries in that division, the loss of Kailub Russell to injury and Thad Duvall to a bike failure costing too much to do any better despite some standout performances by the others.
And top mention for a standout performance has to go to Ryan Sipes who, in only his second Six Days and first time on the U.S. World Trophy team, made history by not only winning his class (E2) but doing so with a score that made him the fastest man of the week overall!
“It’s an unbelievable feeling to do this; it’s just awesome because moving over into off-road has been a tough transition for me, but to do this and be the first [American to win the overall] is an unbelievable feeling,” he pronounced. “I just feel like the weight’s off my shoulders and the stress is gone! We can celebrate now; we can talk about it now!
“I didn’t want to talk about it all week. The jinx thing I don’t believe in, but I didn’t want to let my focus stray. I just wanted to ride my best and be smart and make good decisions. All week I was holding onto the lead and that’s stressful!”
Sipes sealed his unprecedented achievement by winning his final E2 moto, getting the lead shortly after the first turn and pulling away from his week-long nemesis, Australian leader Daniel Milner. Sipes managed to pad the cushion over his rival from 35 to 43 seconds when the week’s entire gamut of scores was added up.
While France stole the win from Australia in World Trophy, the Aussies weren’t denied in Junior World Trophy, led by E3 winner Daniel Sanders. Australia trounced Sweden by 15 and a half minues with Italy another 11 minutes farther back. Team USA’s squad was cut in half, losing Layne Michaels to a wrist injury on Day 1 and Nick Davis to bike failure on Day 5. That left only Grant Baylor and injured brother Steward Baylor to finish it out, which they did in style, though the final team results wouldn’t reflect this.
France won the FIM World Trophy for the fourth year running after its three disqualified riders (and five others from different countries) were reinstated, dropping Australia to second with Spain third. Australia walked off the podium in protest as it was the only country of the top five finishers not to have any riders excluded.
Australia owned the Women’s World Trophy division all week, its three riders going 1-2-3 in the final standings. After six days, they had nearly 56 minutes on France and an hour and 15 on Sweden, with Finland and Team USA’s Rachel Gutish, Mandi Mastin and Jamie Wells rounding out the top five.
The GoFasters.com trio of Reid Brown, Nate Ferderer and Brian Garrahan may not have been able to land on the podium, but they finished with flourish. Ferderer set the fastest C3 time of the day and Garrahan followed suit with the fourth-fastest C2 time that also made him the quickest of all American Club team riders.
The Boise Ridge Riders (Kale Elworthy, Skyler Howes and A.J. Lehr) finished 12th, the Missouri Mudders (Ryan Kudla), Kyle McDonal and Mike Pillar) were 13th, the Elizabeth Scott team (Jason Densley, Fred Hoess and Brian Storrie) placed 15th, Eric Cleveland (Jubal Brown, Geoffrey Sanders and Dillon Sheppard) earned 22nd and the Tony Agonis team (Ben Kelley, John Kelley and Josh Toth) got 29th.
