2026 AMA National Hard Enduro Round 1 Results

| January 26, 2026

The AMA National Hard Enduro Championship kicked off its 2026 season with the Motorcycles and Coffee King Of The Motos in Johnson Valley ORVA. Rocky canyons, loamy sand sections and extreme downhill runs tested the racecraft of Pros and the endurance of Amateurs. Race Director Justin Leineweber designed parts of the course in reverse of the 2025 event, creating new features from familiar obstacles, including the rock gardens of the Outer Limits to the harrowing downhill of Drop of Jack.

Trystan Hart at 2026 King of the Motos — **FMF Factory KTM’s Trystan Hart got the 2026 AMA National Hard Enduro Championship going with the overall win at the King of the Motos race.**

By Kyoshi Mckizzie | Photos by Ryan McCasland

The weather was brisk but dry on Saturday. Racing started early, with the Pro Women and Amateur classes storming up Chocolate Thunder.

Louise Forsley led the pack up the mountain as chaos formed behind her. “I’m usually ahead of the girls, and so I set my sights on class A [men’s] riders,” she said.

The IRC Tire Beta rider wasn’t far from her goal, with only four A-class riders remaining ahead of her. The first to reach the checkers was A-class rider Makana Barger. After holeshotting the second row, he battled fellow Hawaiian Boogie Rivera all the way to the finish, edging him out by merely three seconds. Boogie, excited for Sunday, said, “The lap was just straight grind, no rest, just wide open, sketchy, and yeah, just trying to keep it on two wheels.”

The Pros had a different challenge. Instead of a loop on the main route, a trial of quick reflexes and stacked obstacles awaited them at Super Fun Canyon. PCI Race Radios put $1000 on the line and a single few-minute run doesn’t forgive mistakes. Cody Webb came up short by eight-tenths of a second. The winner, 2025 Champion Trystan Hart, said, “I think I wanted the $1000 more because I walked the whole track, and he walked half of it. He was faster, but I had a couple of sneaky lines on the part he didn’t walk, and that made the difference.”

By the time the gate dropped on Sunday, the sun had melted the morning chill. The smaller gates kept Chocolate Thunder from bottlenecking. FMF Factory KTM’s Hart dominated on the first lap despite a broken shifter.

“Once the gate dropped, I sprinted as fast as I could,” Hart said. “It is hard to get away with the navigation, and they caught me a couple of times, but I kept going.”

Ryder LeBlond at 2026 King of the Motos — **Rockstar Energy Husqvarna’s Ryder LeBlond had to work hard but was rewarded with second overall.**

Rockstar Energy Husqvarna’s Ryder LeBlond’s second place was more hard-fought. Fourth off the gate, Leblond made quick work of third-placed rider Braxton Hintze on the first hill. Webb (second place) pulled ahead, but a broken footpeg gave LeBlond the edge to reel him back in.

LeBlond said, “I broke into second halfway through the first lap. I think I gained a little bit on Trystan and maintained that gap for, like, a lap or two going into the last three laps. I had a four- or five-minute gap the whole time. If I were there, maybe I could have made something happen, but it was too big a gap, but I kept pushing.”

James Flynn at 2026 King of the Motos — **IRC Tire Beta USA’s James Flynn claimed a respectable third overall.**

IRC Tire Beta USA’s James Flynn was third overall, 12 minutes behind LeBlond, but was in a tight battle for the final podium step. Flynn finished just under a minute ahead of Matthew Green, who bested Brandon Petrie by just mere seconds in overall time.

Makana Barger emerged victorious once again in the A class, using strategy to get the edge.

“I started off pretty good, but I took a wrong turn,” Barger said. “I turned my back and saw Boogie just blow right by me. I turned around, caught up to him, but we ran into some traffic. I took a straight line and gave him a little block pass and got by him.”

King Of The Motos also debuted two new Pro classes. Racer Aidan Manger broke the champagne as the sole rider in the Pro E-Moto class, and six-time KOTM Champion Webb led the also newly minted-in Pro Four-Stroke class with fellow teammate Riley Bender in tow.CN