Shan Moore | February 28, 2023
Counting the potential Trophy Team riders and Letter of Intent (LOI) riders, a total of 40 remained for Monday’s final day of qualifying at the South Carolina U.S. Sprint Enduro round for this year’s International Six Day Enduro, which will be held in San Juan, Argentina, later this fall. Transfer Trail, which is not normally used for the U.S. Sprint Enduro Series, was added in for Monday to simulate an actual ISDE. Each rider competed three times on the cross test and three times on the enduro test. These times were added into the times the riders accumulated during Saturday and Sunday’s racing.
Antti Kallonen, U.S. Trophy Team manager since 2012, was on hand to oversee the proceedings. Kallonen mentioned that he is taking more of an interest in the younger LOI riders and potential future Trophy Team riders.
ISDE Trophy Team Manager Antti Kallonen oversaw the qualification part of the weekend’s program in South Carolina.
“In the past, we’ve had a 2-3-round qualifier series, but this year we are just doing one race on each coast, but each is three days long,” said Kallonen. “All three days’ cumulative times count towards a rider’s overall time and the top seven club riders from each coast are chosen according to those times. We also have four pro riders competing this weekend, who have all been to Six Days before, and they are here for the practice and to support this qualifier event. It is so hard to duplicate anything like this in a practice scenario, so this is the best way to do it.” Kallonen was pleased to see a deep field of top riders wanting to qualify for Argentina.
A total of 21 club riders get to go to Six Days, so seven are taken from the east qualifier and seven from the west and then one club team is hand selected, which is usually made up of top-level pro riders who are not on a Trophy Team. A Senior team also is selected, making up the 21 riders.
“This is actually my first time to attend a qualifier, so I’m taking a little deeper look at the club riders,” added Kallonen. “We’re grooming the next generation of Trophy riders, men and women.”
Missing from the event was FMF/KTM’s Taylor Robert, who was supposed to be riding a six-race schedule this year, strictly in preparation for Argentina.
“Taylor was supposed to ride both the east and west qualifier series for practice, and it’s good for these up-and-coming racers to get to watch a past ISDE overall winner, so it’s a bummer he injured his wrist. We’re not sure if he will be ready for the west qualifier, but that is his main goal for the year is to ride Argentina,” said Kallonen.
FMF/KTM’s Johnny Girroir was the overall winner for the three-day qualifier event, taking the overall by nearly 28 seconds ahead of Rockstar Energy Husqvarna’s Craig DeLong, and he commented that with the transfer trail, Monday’s event was much tougher.
“The tests were longer and there was about a 10-minute transfer between the tests, so it was a bit more challenging,” said Girroir. “I was on the ground a lot the first two days, but I cleaned it up today and only fell once, so I feel good about the win.”
Coastal Racing GasGas’ Thad Duvall was third overall for the three days, while FXR/GasGas rider Layne Michael was fourth.
Pennsylvania’s Thorn Devlin was the top LOI rider in fifth overall so he will get a chance to make up for his last two attempts at Six Days when he qualified but didn’t get to ride due to injuries.
“In 2019 and then last year, I got hurt at the last minute and didn’t get to go,” said Devlin. “I’m pretty much giving it one more shot and hopefully we stay healthy.”
Trail Jesters KTM’s Korie Steede came into Monday’s event a minute-and-a-half behind Rachel Gutish but managed to come back and take the Pro Women’s win by five seconds.
“Actually, the pressure of Saturday and Sunday were just kind of lifted off my shoulders and I just told myself to go out there and have a good time,” said Steede. “I wasn’t too worried about the times since I was so far down, but after two tests I realized I had a chance to pull it off.”
Husqvarna-mounted Jocelyn Barnes was third in the Pro Women’s class, with Raines Racing Yamaha’s Prestin Raines and RPM Racing KTM’s Kaitlyn Jacobs rounding out the top five.
Shan Moore
Overall Results (3 Days)
- Johnny Girroir (KTM)
- Craig DeLong (Hus)
- Thad Duvall (GG)
- Layne Michael (GG)
- Thorn Devlin (KTM) LOI
- Jaden Dahners (Yam) LOI
- Trevor Maley (KTM) LOI
- Jhak Walker (GG) LOI
- Zack Toth (KTM) LOI
- Hunter Smith (KTM) LOI
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