Mark Kariya | November 14, 2018
As the 93rd International Six Days Enduro (ISDE) reached its halfway point in Viña del Mar, Chile, Wednesday, November 14, the three elite squads on the U.S. team find themselves solidifying their hold on second place in their respective categories. The U.S. World Trophy team (Steward Baylor, Zach Bell, Taylor Robert and Ryan Sipes) is second to Australia by three minutes, 23.47 seconds; the U.S. Junior World Trophy team (Grant Baylor, Ben Kelley and Josh Toth) trails Italy by 3:27.46 and the U.S. Women’s World Trophy team (Tarah Gieger, Brandy Richards and Becca Sheets) is now 6:17.34 behind Australia.
Solid Second
Steward Baylor made his bike stick in this corner full of rolling river rocks en route to the seventh-best E2 result for the day. The U.S. World Trophy team lost a little ground to Australia but remains second. Photos: Mark Kariya
After leading the individual overall standings for two days, Robert surrendered that lead to Australia’s Daniel Milner and is now 13.26 second in arrears of the former GNCC regular. However, Robert still leads the E2 class since Milner is in E3.
Forced to play catch-up since bouncing his face off his handlebar on the first day, Toth finally saw his efforts pay off, finishing the day with the third-fastest Junior time and 13th best overall. That grants him an earlier starting position, meaning fewer slower riders to contend with in the tests and less dust.
2018 ISDE Chile Day Three Update
After a bad start to the week due to bouncing his face off his handlebar on the first day, Josh Toth has made huge strides to improve his results each day, moving him farther up the starting order where he’ll have fewer slower riders and less dust to contend with. Today, it showed as he posted the second-fastest time in E1. The U.S. Junior World Trophy team maintains second to Italy.
“It’s hard to compete with the guys up front when I’m braking on the straightaways and I can’t see anything,” he said.
Dust also factored into the Women’s World Trophy standings, as Sheets explained: “On [the] La Gloria [test] the second time around, we girls kind of got hung up with some [of the slower] Trophy riders. They made really bad dust on this hill—it really wasn’t even that hard of a hill, but you couldn’t see through the dust until you got to the top of it where people were crashed and once you got to the top of it, you couldn’t make it [because of riders laying in the trail].
“I think almost every girl in the front had a struggle there. I lost three minutes there today and Tarah lost six minutes there today on the one hill!”
Dust from slower World Trophy riders stuck on a hill cost several of the Women’s World Trophy riders significant time, though Becca Sheets and the rest of the Americans retain second in the category to Australia.
While the American women lost ground to the Australians, they also opened up the gap on third-place Spain.
Though the Club team standings weren’t available when at this time, the Elizabeth Scott Community team from the U.S. lost veteran Destry Abbott to a big crash early in the day that left him too battered and sore to continue, and he’ll have to accept a DNF in his 10th ISDE.
“I honestly didn’t come here with the highest expectations,” he admitted. “I’m still recovering; my body’s still not where it should be [after finishing chemo just last month].
“I’m bummed because this’ll probably be my last one. I wanted to end on a good note, but that’s the way racing goes.”
Though Cooper Abbott (left) is still going strong on the RPM/Mt. Baker U.S. Club team that was fifth after two days (the best among the American teams), Destry (right) crashed early today and was too beat up to continue, marking his first DNF in 10 ISDEs.
He’ll now shift gears to support son, Cooper, who’s enjoying a good debut ISDE on the RPM/Mt. Baker Club team with Ryan Kudla and Dante Oliveira. They finished day two fifth among the 106 Club teams, the top American Club after two days.
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