Upland, Indiana (September 12, 2014) – The NEPG’s Alan Randt (pictured) prepares to mark trail in preparation for this weekend’s Muddobbers National Enduro, which is the 10th and final round of the Kenda AMA National Enduro Series in Upland, Indiana.
Rain earlier in the week should leave Sunday’s race with perfect conditions, as riders as over 500 riders will compete for yearend awards.
Factory Racing Husqvarna’s Andrew DeLong is all set to wrap the championship in the Pro division, and comes into the race with a 22-point lead over Maxxis/Klim/DirtWise KTM’s Jesse Groemm in the series standings.
The Muddobbers event will include a special tribute dinner on Saturday night for eight-time National Enduro Champion Mike Lafferty, who is retiring after 20 years of racing. In addition, the series awards banquet will take place after the race on Sunday evening and Yamaha is giving away a new power washer to one of the class winners.
Over 150 landowners participate in the Muddobbers national event and the course consists of flowing hard-packed trails mixed with a few creek crossings and open fields.
Though DeLong sits in good shape as far as the championship goes, there will still be a fight for that all important final win of the season, and KTM support rider Grant Baylor is on fire after winning the previous round in South Carolina.
Additionally, Groemm sits second overall in the standings and would like nothing better than to go out with a win, as would Brad Bakken on the N-Fab/Am Pro Yamaha, who won the Virginia round earlier in the year.
A knee injury slowed AirGroup Racing’s Nick Fahringer three-fourths of the way into the series but the Ohio rider should be at full speed heading into Indiana and is another rider fully capable of coming away with a victory.
In the Rekluse Expert-AA class, seven-time National Enduro Champion Randy Hawkins, owner of the Am-Pro Yamaha team, and former National HS champion Jason Raines, owner of Raines Riding University, have both contributed to the Expert-AA year end purse bringing the current total to $2,200 that will be distributed to the top five in that class at the yearend awards ceremony. Husqvarna support rider Craig Delong leads this class standings heading into the Indiana race.
On Saturday, KTM will be on hand to offer demo rides for anyone interested in riding one of the new models.
