Since two men are out, the U.S. World Trophy team has no hope of winning so now the team will concentrate on helping Ryan Sipes retain his overall individual lead. Photography by Mark Karyia
Team USA will have to wait another year for a shot at the FIM World Trophy after losing Thad Duvall today to an apparent electrical issue at the 90th International Six Days Enduro in Kosice, Slovakia. Ironically, he’d enjoyed a stellar performance the day before.
This development comes on the heels of yesterday’s surprise DQ of Taylor Robert who, along with seven other prominent riders from four other countries, received the penalty for missing an observation check.
Naturally, the exclusions were appealed so all of the affected riders were allowed to continue riding, though their scores won’t be included in the team’s results until the FIM jury rules on those appeals which it is expected to do by the end of the week.
But with Duvall’s retirement early today, it may very well be a moot point since Kailub Russell’s retired yesterday after injuring his knee. Since the five best scores are counted in the World Trophy division, having only four riders doesn’t cut it.
“So basically, after that, I just told all the riders after the first test, now we’re just going for the individual results and take this as good practice, and also we’re focused on helping Ryan Sipes to hopefully win the overall [fastest individual honors],” U.S. Team Manager Antti Kallonen explained.
Now, Robert has a new job and that’s to help teammate Sipes. Robert rode brilliantly today, his unofficial scores making him the second fastest rider of the day behind only Sipes. That means that they’ll both start at the head of the field tomorrow along with Australia’s Daniel Milner who had the third-best unofficial score. To assist Sipes, Robert will start each test tomorrow before Sipes does in order to put at least one set of tracks down. Even though the tests will be the same ones as today, being the first one on course generally doesn’t help set fast times.
The U.S. World Trophy team dropped further in the standings to 22nd, Australia increasing its lead over Italy and Finland.
On the other hand, the defending champion U.S. Junior World Trophy team continued to plug along with another podium-worthy performance out of the two healthy and one injured riders still running. Grant Baylor didn’t have quite the day he did yesterday, but his eighth in E2 for the day made him the top Junior in the class today. Separated shoulder and all, brother Steward Baylor continued to amaze by turning in the 15th best E2 score today while Nick Davis was 41st in the class. Their scores kept them solidly in third behind Australia and Sweden going into the final two days.
Australia’s three women could do no wrong in Women’s World Trophy for the fourth day in a row, stretching their lead to over 39 minutes ahead of France and Sweden, followed by Finland and Team USA’s Rachel Gutish, Mandi Mastin and Jamie Wells.
Old guys rule! Brian Garrahan may be eligible for the Senior class now, but he’s still fast enough to lead his GoFasters.com Club team teammates as they moved to fourth today.
The GoFasters.com trio of Reid Brown, Nate Ferderer and Brian Garrahan remained the best of the U.S. Club teams and moved up a spot to fourth. Third place, however, is 17 minutes ahead of them so one of the top three Club teams would have to lose a rider for the GoFasters.com guys to land on the podium.
