Issue link: http://trailridermagazine.uberflip.com/i/1546787
26 Trail Rider www.TrailRider.com Speaking of fun, 8- me na onal enduro champ Mike Lafferty was on hand with the Sherco group offering test rides on all sizes of their 2-stroke and 4-stroke lineup. No cing that the local deputy sheriff on hand was also named Lafferty, we told him who Mike was and to go mess with him. Dep- uty Lafferty walked up to Mike and told him there was a limit on how many Lafferty's they could allow in the county, and told him he'd have to get out. We all got a good laugh, and then Mike went out Sunday, handily topping the 50A class by a 15-minute margin, so the ol' boy s ll has it. As noted above, Saturday's racers had to deal with dust. Test 1 started out as an easy 4-miler with a lot of skid steer stuff, but it was made that way to accommodate the youth classes. Each successive test got a li le longer un l the last one, which was 7.5 miles. Rain started Saturday evening during the final couple of Super Test head-to-heads and con nued on and off through the night. The dust turned to grease and exposed roots offered about as much trac on as oiled cable. I've no ced the Baylor brothers, especial- ly Grant last year, spor ng trials res at some events, so when Stew rolled up to my check-in at Test 3 I asked him if he was liking the trials re in the slop. He said he was about to find out, 'cause he'd just swapped it on a er the 2nd test. It kept him in the hunt and good enough for P3 on the day, although I saw plenty of other riders with those semi-paddle rears, so to each his own. Whatever gets you to the checkout quickest. Burning Rock was the race of comebacks and tle wraps. You may recall 2024 series champ Josh Toth broke his femur at the Lead Belt Na onal in '25. Toth was third quickest through the first test, but domi- nated the remaining tests to secure the overall win for the day, an amazing comeback from what could easily have been a career-ending crash. Teammate Nick DeFeo, who also fractured his femur early this season, was 5th quickest through the Super Test and finished just off the box, P5 for the day in the Pro2 class, in his first race back from injury. In the tle wrap department, KTM's Jason Tino secured the NEPro2 na onal tle, and Husqvarna's Korie Steede locked up the Women's Elite tle. Korie took the top step of the box in the first round and never relinquished it all year. Tino's been on the box every round ba ling with Beta's Jhak Walker. Fantas- c racing by all three compe tors. They'll be off to Portugal soon for the ISDE to take on the world. Jerod Feller Jerod Feller