Trail Rider Magazine

16 Trail Rider www.TrailRider.com The 65s and 85s rode three laps of most of Sunday's test 5. This was on the higher and drier side of the ranch and was tacking up nicely by their 2 pm start me. The 6 mile course had a li le bit of everything, including grass track, creek crossings, logs, off camber side hills, and some challenging up and downhills. The obstacles didn't seem to phase the older and more experienced riders, and they carried good speed with some impressive riding. I rode sweep and the biggest problem spots were a couple of fairly significant and gnarly uphills and logs where we had to park and get a few kids up and over. One li le ripper named Ryder was aboard a shiny new 65 GASGAS, his first race aboard a bike with a clutch. As you can imagine, he was struggling with stalls, p overs, and restar ng his bike, so a couple of us stayed with him. As you can imagine, he was ge ng a li le dejected. We told him that every one of us "grown ups" had been in his shoes before and not to worry. He finally fouled a plug, so we hauled him out of the woods. His dad asked him if he wished he'd been on his KLX with the auto clutch, and he said "Nope!" Good li le trooper there. The sun stayed out Saturday a ernoon and with no addi onal overnight rain the condi ons Sunday looked promising. Tests 1 and 2 looped out of the main pits and would be the sloppiest of the day as they were in the more densely wooded parts of the ranch. A gravel road transferred riders out to Tests 3, 4, and 5 on the higher, drier, and more open parts of the ranch, with Test 6 running out of and returning to the main pit. Tests 1 through 5 totalled 48 ground miles, 31 miles of which were med tests. Test 6, run by the Pros, AAs and A riders added another 6 med miles with a total of 55 ground miles for the day. Beta's Jhak Walker, riding the Pro2 class, set the pace in Test 1, bes ng defending champ Josh Toth by 4 sec- onds. Stew Baylor pulled into P3 two seconds behind Toth with brother Grant Baylor and Triumph/Enduro Engineering's Ricky Russell rounding out the top 5 spots. In the Pro2 class it was Walker with Ryan Piper 31 seconds back and Nick DeFeo 11 seconds later for the P3 spot. Rachel Gu sh railed her new Rieju to top the Women's Elite by 20 seconds over fellow ISDE vets Rachel Archer (New Zealand) and Shelby Turner (Canada). An early 20 or 30 second margin in the NEPG is huge, but not a laurel to rest on as it only takes one blown corner or crash to even things out. The consistency of these riders is amazing and there were mul ple instances throughout the day where thousandths of a second separated posi- ons. The differen al between Archer and Turner in Test 1 was 0.35 seconds. Later in the day the dif- ference between Chase Landers and Nick DeFeo in Test 6 was 0.128 seconds. Now you know why the pros are always stretching the thro le cable and taking chances. Check out Broc Hepler's Enduro- Cam footage where he follows different pro riders and you'll see some amazing skill. Test 2 was 7.5 miles of more ght and technical woods riding. There was s ll plenty of slop in the low lying areas, but the rest of the course was tacking up nicely. The first rows had to deal with the most crud while anyone on row 10 or higher got treated to some nicely burned in and tractable trail with good alternate lines through the gnarly spots. Stew Baylor put the hammer down on the 450 Kawasaki, bes ng team mate Josh Toth by 21 seconds through the test. Four tenths of a second separated Ben Kelley and Grant Baylor for P3 and P4 with GTBN's Jhak Walker coming through the scoring chute 5th overall and 40 seconds ahead of Chase Landers for the Pro2 test win. Rachel Gu sh kept the heat on in the Women's Elite class topping Shelby Turner by 6 seconds with Rachel Archer another 3 seconds back. A er an easy transfer to the remote rider support area, the racers would run Tests 3 and 4 back to back, then return to the support area to run Test 5. Thanks in part to the sporadic internet coverage in the middle of nowhere, there were some glitches in the Test 3 ming with the result being the test scores being thrown out. The glitch affected mostly the early and later rows and generally did not affect the pro classes, but in fairness to all the results had to be tossed as there are plenty of AA, A, B and C riders who could have had their final scores affect- ed and thus impact their series standings. Rachel Gu sh did not complain about the toss as she had a rider loop out on a hill and fall backwards on top of her. She was underneath her bike, his bike, and him and lost a good 30 seconds ge ng out from under the dog pile and back in mo on. That would have erased the comfortable margin she had. She didn't find out about the toss un l the race was over, though, and put her head down to maintain her lead.

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