Mark Kariya | October 15, 2016
Team USA Poised To Make History At ISDE: The U.S. World Trophy team got some breathing room in its quest for its first victory when nearest rival Italy lost two riders today on Day Five at the 91st International Six Days Enduro in Navarra, Spain.
Team USA Poised To Make History At ISDE
Grant Baylor and the rest of the U.S. Junior World Trophy team had a pretty good day, but Sweden was just a bit faster, padding its lead by a couple seconds over the American trio. Photography by Mark Kariya
Instead of being a somewhat tenuous one minute and 22.31 seconds ahead, Team USA now owns a more comfortable 3:43.62 gap over Great Britain with the Czech Republic now occupying third, 29:16.59 behind the American squad.
In order to seal the history-making win, basically all that Thad Duvall, Layne Michael, Taylor Robert and Kailub Russell have to do is avoid trouble in tomorrow’s final motocross test which will run on a course built for the event on the north end of the Circuito de Los Arcos road race facility that’s served as the base of operations all week.
“We knew we had just over a minute lead [on Italy going into today and] we don’t want to lose a lot of time today so you’ve just got to take it one test at a time,” Robert explained. “That’s what I kept telling myself: Get through every test.
“After the first test we found out that Italy had dropped a rider so now we had a three-minute lead on [Great Britain] so then it was like a huge relief for everybody but me because I’m still battling [for] the overall.
Team USA Poised To Make History At ISDE
Layne Michael sends it to a brutal flat landing on this drop-off in the cross test at Larraga. He and the rest of the U.S. World Trophy team got a bit of a break when two of Italy’s riders DNFed, setting the scene for a historic first win in enduro’s most prestigious category.
“I think they kind of were able to tone it down and put it into survival mode, but I was still out there hanging it out because I have a big overall [individual win] on the line, too.
“Then in the back of my head, it’s also like, ‘Well, I’ve got to make sure that I don’t cost the team anything [with a crash or something] so I’m riding this fine line, but we got through the day and it was all good.”
He’ll carry a 12.10-second lead over Australian World Trophy team rider Daniel Sanders going into the final motocross tests, though they won’t be battling it out head to head on the track since they’re in different classes—Robert in E2 and Sanders in E3.
“As long as nothing drastic happens, I should be able to maintain,” Robert noted. “It’s definitely really stressful, but I just want to go out there and have a clean race.”
On the day, Spanish Junior World Trophy rider Josep Garcia topped the time sheets, 18.55 seconds ahead of Sanders, followed by Italian World Trophy rider Giacomo Redondi and Robert, who was 32.37 seconds behind Garcia.
Michael finished the day fifth in E1 and 14th overall, one position ahead of Russell, who was fourth-fastest of the E2 riders. Duvall ended the day seventh in E3 and 19th overall.
In the FIM Junior World Trophy team standings, Sweden added a couple seconds to its lead over the U.S. contingent, the margin now 26.92 seconds. Grant Baylor enjoyed an excellent day, finishing third in E2 and 10th overall individually for the day. Steward Baylor finished the day sixth in E2 and 20th overall while Trevor Bollinger’s scores put him 13th in E1 and 32nd overall.
Defending champion Australia padded its lead in the FIM Women’s World Trophy class, growing its lead to 3:34.42 over Spain with Germany another 14:15.44 behind for third. Though Rachel Gutish DNFed yesterday with terminal engine failure due to a bad oil pump, Tarah Geiger and Nicole Bradford kept Team USA in fourth, 12:02.96 behind Germany and a comfortable 6:00.88 ahead of Sweden.
Team USA Poised To Make History At ISDE
The first FIM Enduro Vintage Trophy competition got underway yesterday with a 200-meter acceleration test. Today, riders rode trail and two tests totaling just over 60 miles with ISDE veteran Fred Hoess the sole American entered. Results were unavailable, but Hoess said he had a great time and riding his 1985 Husqvarna 250 WR on some of the trail that took him back to when he raced the 1985 ISDE in Spain on a similar bike.
Yesterday’s initial Club team results were wrong, but the initial results for Day Five appear to be correct. Italy remains the leader with Team USA’s Trail Jesters (Ben Kelley, Jason Klammer and Josh Toth) second, 5:32.75 behind. Eric Cleveland Memorial (Alex Dorsey, Broc Hepler and Jimmy Jarrett) are third, a further 7:42.02 behind and hoping to maintain its 42.81-second lead over the United Kingdom’s Team Scotland to preserve its podium spot.
Missouri Mudders (JT Baker, Nate Ferderer and Ryan Powell) are listed at sixth, Tony Agonis Memorial (Kale Elworthy, Joey Fiasconaro and AJ Lehr) ninth, Michigan Offroad Events (Mike Pillar, Luke Ross and Talon Soenksen) 18th and Elizabeth Scott Community (Dan Capparelli, Jayson Densley and Brian Storrie) 21st.
The traditional bar-to-bar motocross tests by class and classification will close out this edition of the ISDE tomorrow.
Team USA Poised To Make History At ISDE
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