Issue link: http://trailridermagazine.uberflip.com/i/1456806
March 2022 19 If the race went poorly, I will men on every en- tertaining or interes ng anecdote I possibly can in an effort to hit the word count while talking about myself as li le as possible. I have stalled as long as possible though, so might as well get it over with. I started off conserva vely in test one, trying to be smooth and controlled through the sec on. I pull out my phone and check the results. I'm already a minute down … this is going to be a long day. Since smooth and controlled didn't do much for me, the next test I ride as hard as I possibly can, crashing twice and feeling wildly out of control. As you may have already guessed, that didn't help, and in fact, made the whole situa on worse. I spent the rest of the day trying and failing to find a balance between those two posi ons, and mentally making a list of bike set-up changes and things I need to prac ce before the next NEPG. Thanks to a halfway decent test five, I barely held on to a fourth-place finish — respectable, but nowhere near where I should be if I hope to be a cham- pionship contender in the series this year. Now that we've reached the end of this ar cle, I feel obligated to do the whole "race recap thing" and talk about what the other pro riders did, but I'll keep it short and sweet. Stu Baylor (YAM) took the Pro1 and overall win. He won three of the six tests and beat second-place Ryder Lafferty (GAS) by 32 seconds on the day. Josh Toth (KTM) rounded out the podium in third, almost exactly one minute down from Baylor and about 28 seconds from Lafferty. Both took one test win. Though he finished 6th in class, Trevor Bollinger also took a single test win. In Pro2, Ben Nelko (HON) was your top fin- isher, also taking an impressive 5 th -place over- all. He was followed by Brody Johnson (HSQ) and Jonathan Johnson (BETA). Lastly, Rachael Archer (YAM) was the winner in Women's Elite, winning four of the five tests, with her high- est OA in a test being a 41st in test one. Korie Steede (KTM) stayed close all day, finishing 18 seconds down to Archer. Despite breaking several fingers in one the later tests, reigning champ Mackenzie Tricker held on to the final podium posi on. -Rachel Photos By Shan Moore Photos By Shan Moore