Issue link: http://trailridermagazine.uberflip.com/i/1546787
October 2026 13 Since 2013, so for 13 years, I was just racing GNCCs. I got into Na onal Enduros a li le bit there towards the end of my career. I mean, I enjoyed both of those things. But for GNCC, that is definitely a full- me job. You have to be train- ing day in and day out to be at that level and have the fitness to go for three hours. I haven't been doing that, just working and training when I can, and with the baby on the way and now arrived, we've been so busy. So I've mostly been picking one-off events that sounded fun. Doing a couple J-Day races turned into a series to start following. Kawasaki had the best con ngency, so I got a couple Kawi's and I've been chasing all of the fun races I can. Speaking of which, Kawasaki Canada put up some serious money for the Cord this year? Many years ago I found out about the Cord because I was thumbing through the online GASGAS con ngen- cy schedule (laughs). Is that how you found out about it too? So I rode for Al [Alan Randt] on the Enduro Engineering team last year, and he originally wanted us to go do it. But it always conflicts with a GNCC, and toward the end of the year I didn't have support lined up for this year so I really stuck it out with the GNCCs and leaned into it because I was s ll trying to get some support there. So we ended up not coming up to the Corduroy. But this year I was looking at it, and thought to myself I really should go do it, the race looks like a lot of fun. That's when I saw Kawasaki posted the con ngency, and then I thought "wow, I REALLY should go do it now!" Coming from Washington, it cost a lot of money to travel and be here and was difficult to figure out the logis cs. For them to pay out like that, is what made the whole trip possible for me. You men oned before we started that you and your dad were headed to the airport, so it sounds like you didn't drive out here. What were the logis cs involved in ge ng you here? I s ll had a vehicle in South Carolina from last year. So we flew to South Carolina. My J-Day bike was a used bike from a friend, that some- one else has been hauling to the J-Days for me, so I could just fly in. On Tuesday, I took a red- eye flight and on Wednesday I picked up a new Kawasaki before the race and worked on it allll day. Finished around 2am, then got up early and le for the Cord without even riding the bike. We got to the race Friday around 10am and went straight to the prologue and broke in the bike on the sigh ng lap (laughs). It has to feel even be er taking the win a er such an underdog experience! For sure! I was already so wore out by the me I even got to the race. This was also my first me rac- ing the Cord and in a lot of ways I didn't know what I was ge ng myself into. They were telling me you can walk tests. I didn't know we were allowed to walk the tests, since we're never allowed to walk them in American Na onal Enduros. When I got there and found out Tyler Medaglia had already been walking for a couple days it was like 'oh man, I'm already behind the 8-ball'. I went out a er the prologue and walked Green Mountain just because I was told that was one of the ones that would be important to walk. But halfway through I realized I was so exhausted that I just needed to get back to the hotel and try and get some rest before day one. But even without walking any of the Day One we were s ll right there in the mix at the end of the day. Day Two is when things really started clicking and things went my way. It felt really cool to make it happen! Did the tests on Day Two suit you a li le more as well. A couple of them maybe remind you a li le of home? Certain sec ons, with the wet rocks and technical parts… what was that one? The really gnarly one? Blackberry? Yeah, Blackberry! That one reminded me of Wash- ington-type trail, muddy and rooty. We don't have a lot of slab rock like that at home, but I felt real- ly good there and a lot of people said they really struggled. Most of them weren't so much like Washington, but almost all of them had gnarly and technical aspects where I shined. Backtracking a bit. It was your first Cord, you didn't realize you could walk tests. Was there anything else that caught you off-guard. For a first mer, there are a lot of rules that are different than an American Enduro, there's a bit of an unusual mix of rules.