Shan Moore | October 18, 2021
The results from the October 10 Buckwheat 100 GNCC were updated on Saturday, October 16, which has championship implications.
Steward Baylor Jr. and 15 other racers have been penalized for exceeding track limits at the Buckwheat 100 GNCC.
Current runner-up in the championship, Steward Baylor Jr., as well as 15 other riders, have had their championship points revised after it was deemed that, on a section of the Buckwheat 100 racetrack, they exceeded GNCC’s 25-foot rule, which allows riders to navigate freely within 25 feet of the course markers. By going beyond the 25-foot rule, these racers were docked championship points, which is costly for Baylor, who was trailing Ben Kelley by just four points going into this weekend’s season finale in Crawfordsville, Indiana. Now, Steward is eight points back, which means for Baylor to win the title, he must win the race and have Kelley finish either third or worse. Prior to the penalty, it would have been a straightforward winner-take-all battle for the championship.CN
The race report from Shan Moore posted on October 11 is below:
FMF/KTM’s Ben Kelley moved back to the top of the Grand National Cross Country Series Championship chase with just one round remaining after taking a runaway win at the Buckwheat 100 GNCC in Newburg, West Virginia.
Kelley came into the race trailing Steward Baylor by one point in the standings, but now heads into the series finale at Ironman with a four-point advantage over the AmPro Yamaha rider, setting up a scenario where whichever rider finishes ahead of the other will take the title in a last-gasp race for the gold. Results from the Buckwheat race, however, are still provisional. Race officials are following up on a protest which could alter overall results. But, for now, Kelley is the new points leader.
Ben Kelley took the overall win at the Buckwheat GNCC in West Virginia. Photography by Ken Hill.
Kelley had been in a position to win the previous two rounds, leading most of the two races only to have Baylor escape with dramatic, last-lap rallies to take down both wins. However, at the Buckwheat, Kelley was determined not to let that happen again.
“I feel like two or three races this year I’ve lost the race on the last lap,” said Kelley. “Honestly, just not being focused. It’s frustrating to lose it when you’re just not focused. That’s honestly been the thing I’ve been struggling with the most this year. But today I just stayed focused.”
Baylor grabbed the holeshot, but Kelley made the pass for the lead on the opening lap and never looked back, stretching his lead to over two minutes at the finish.
“I was riding fast, but I felt really comfortable, and I just stayed focused,” said Kelley. “It was a tough race, but it feels good to get a win in a strong fashion.”
Baylor started strong, grabbing the holeshot, but just couldn’t match Kelley on this day, and not wanting to risk a major crash, decided to live to fight again at the series finale.
“I got off to a really good start, but on lap two I just kind of got on the struggle bus,” admitted Baylor. “Just stupid things. Some days everything just happens to work in your favor, and other days everything goes against you.
Steward Baylor had Kelley in his sights but would have to settle for second.
“I started having lapper issues. They were just filing in at the wrong time. They pull off for the lead guy and they kind of come right back on me, and then I just started making a lot of mistakes. Late in the race I made a push. I think we went from 50 seconds down to 31 down, but I knew that was all I could do. Then he gapped me back to 40. I was like, that’s all I got. So, at that point, I was like, I can push and probably yo-yo, but I knew he had the win. We still got another race. I just needed to finish the race, and that’s what we did.”
Baylor’s AmPro Yamaha teammate Layne Michael turned in perhaps his best race of the year, running in third for most of the race, but could not hold off the last-lap pressure of Rockstar Energy Factory Husqvarna Racing’s Thad Duvall and was forced to settle for fourth.
“It came down to the last lap and Thad caught me,” said Michael. “I was really just managing it, trying to be smooth, hit my marks. I knew he couldn’t really pass me, but I made one mistake, and I went wide and he was able to take a line on the inside and edge me. So, I started following him and we were getting close here to the end and I was going to try and make a push out here in the field and he made a mistake. I thought I had the move. I was on the inside line, and he was on the outside and we came together and unfortunately I got the bad end of the stick, but fourth feels pretty good.”
Thad Duvall rounded out the podium in third.
Duvall’s third-place finish marked the West Virginia rider’s best finish since taking second at the series opener.
“Layne and I hit each other hard and he went one way and I went the other and luckily I came out on top,” said Duvall. “Just after that I was blowing up and just tried to ride my own race to the finish and made it happen. It feels good to be back on the podium.”
Magna1 Motorsports/Husqvarna’s Jordan Ashburn, who ran in second early in the race, saw his streak of four-straight podiums come to an end with a fifth-place finish, while Babbitt’s Online/Monster Energy/Team Green Kawasaki’s Josh Strang managed to avoid the odd mishaps that have plagued him the last several rounds to finish sixth.
Rockstar Energy Factory Husqvarna Racing’s Trevor Bollinger was third off the start and fourth behind Baylor, Coastal Racing GasGas’ Ricky Russell and Kelley going through the Monster Mile on the opening lap, but couldn’t hold off the midrace pressure of teammate Duvall. Bollinger would ultimately finish seventh.
“I was third off of the start and I hung with the front group the first four or five laps, so the race started off good,” Bollinger said. “After that I just kind of lost sight of them and fell back a little bit.”
Coastal Racing GasGas’ Johnny Girroir needed only to finish fourth in the XC2 250 Pro division to wrap up the class title, but he put his head down and took the win with an eighth-overall finish, coming out on top of the fierce battle with Rockstar Energy Factory Husqvarna Racing’s Craig DeLong and Babbitt’s Online/Monster Energy/Team Green Kawasaki’s Lyndon Snodgrass.
Johnny Girroir clinched the XC2 Pro Championship with a win at the Buckwheat GNCC.
“It was tough beginning of the race,” said Girroir. “I came into this mud pond section over here right before the finish line and hit a rock and went down. I soaked my left glove, and it was like ice holding on. So, I rode a whole lap like that and then came into the pits, changed my gloves. Just tried to work my way back up to these guys. They were about ten or twenty seconds in front of me. Just tried to work back up to them, caught them, crashed, caught them again, crashed. That was the name of the game today. I hit the ground a lot.”
Snodgrass, who grabbed the holeshot to start the XC2 250 Pro class, finished second in class and ninth overall, while DeLong was third place with a 10th overall finish.
Magna1 Motorsports/Husqvarna Jonathan Johnson, who wrapped up the FMF XC3 125cc Pro-Am class title at the previous round, moved up to the XC2 250 Pro class where he finished 22nd overall on a 125, making way for Hunter Neuwirth to get his first win of the season ahead of fellow KTM rider Jason Lipscomb.
BABS Racing Yamaha/Fly/Maxxis/Pro Circuit’s Becca Sheets topped AmPro Yamaha’s Rachael Archer by seven seconds to win the XCW class. With the win, Sheets extended her lead in the class standings to seven points over Archer with one round remaining.
Becca Sheets won the Women’s class.
Babbitt’s Online/Monster Energy/Team Green Kawasaki’s Kori Steede finished third, while Enduro Engineering/Fly Racing KTM’s Mackenzie Tricker, who snagged the Trail Jesters Racing WXC Holeshot award to start the race, finished fourth. CN
OVERALL
- Ben Kelley (KTM)
- Steward Baylor (Yam)
- Thad Duvall (Hus)
- Layne Michael (Yam)
- Jordan Ashburn (Hus)
- Josh Strang (Kaw)
- Trevor Bollinger (Hus)
- Johnny Girroir (GG) XC2 250
- Lyndon Snodgrass (Kaw) XC2 250
- Craig DeLong (Hus) XC2 250
