Cycle News Staff | July 12, 2016
In a format where test wins often come by margins of a tenth-of-a-second or less, being consistently fast throughout the two-day event is key. Rockstar Energy Husqvarna’s Josh Strang proved this at round five of the Kenda Full Gas Sprint Enduro Series presented by Moose Racing, July 9-10, by taking three of 12 test wins and finishing a close second-place in seven tests to take his second-straight overall win of the season over KR4 Performance’s Thad Duvall and Coastal Racing’s Layne Michael.
The first test of the weekend was the cross test that featured much of the Lost Valley Motorsports Park’s motocross track so it was no surprise when former pro motocrosser and 2015 ISDE overall winner Ryan Sipes took the test win by 1.5 seconds over Strang, with Duvall another two seconds back.
Duvall jumped out to the weekend lead after the second test, the enduro test, as he took a four-second win ahead of Strang and put 12 seconds on Sipes who finished fourth in the test, one-second behind SRT Off-Road’s Cory Buttrick and just ahead of his Coastal Racing teammate, Layne Michael.
As the temperatures outside reached the mid-90s, the action on the cross test was just as hot with Sipes continuing to be the fastest on the day, but Strang kept him on his toes by finishing just .092 behind him in the second running of the test and just over a second behind him in the final cross test of the day.
Duvall and Strang would trade test wins in the final two enduro tests of the day and use those scores to help build their advantage over Sipes who finished third and fourth in the final two enduro tests. Sipes dropped a combined 22 seconds to Strang in those two tests alone.
At the end of day one, Strang sat at the top of the leaderboard with a six-second advantage over Duvall, with Sipes another 20 seconds back. Behind the top-three, a tight battle was raging between Cory Buttrick and Layne Michael, as they finished the first day less than three seconds apart.
Sipes came out swinging on day two, taking the first cross test win by three seconds over Strang and four seconds over Duvall, then showed serious improvement in the enduro test by taking the win in the first enduro test of day two by one second ahead of Duvall.
The third test of the day, the cross test, would ruin Sipes’ chances of a run at Duvall and Strang as a big crash resulted in him dropping over one minute to the two leaders and move him back to fifth overall for the weekend.
With his lead cut down to four seconds, Strang rebounded with wins in the third and fourth tests and a second behind Sipes in the fifth test to stretch his lead out to 15 seconds ahead of Duvall. A fourth place in the final test of the weekend for the Australian was good enough to clinch the overall weekend win by 10 seconds ahead of Duvall, who took the final test win of the weekend.
VIDEO WITH DAMON BRADSHAW
Layne Michael would edge out Cory Buttrick for the final podium spot by just eight seconds with Ryan Sipes rounding out the top-five overall.
Billy Schlag took the Open A class win, as well as the top-amateur spot, with an impressive sixth place overall. Luciano Benavides finished second in Open A and seventh overall, with motocross legend Damon Bradshaw finishing third in Open A and eighth place overall in his first-ever off-road race.
The tightest battle of the weekend was in the Women’s Pro class as Becca Sheets and Mackenzie Tricker battled to the last test with Sheets taking the overall win by just 1.4 seconds. Wendy Jaudas rounded out the Women’s podium in third.
Overall Results
- Josh Strang (Hus)
- Thad DuVall (Hus)
- Layne Michael (Hus)
- Cory Buttrick (KTM)
- Ryan Sipes (Hus)
- Billy Schlag (KTM)
- Luciano Benavides (Hus)
- Damon Bradshaw (KTM)
- Braxton McGee (Hus)
- Conner Smith (Hus)
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