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Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/127848
(Left)Jeff Fredette was his usuallorm in the wet and ugly
co nd it ions. as he fi nished th ird overall.
(Below) Randy Hawkins was leading the event until runnin g
out 01 gas a lew miles Irom the IInls h.
k ind of s tu ff," La ffe rty sa id . " I rid e
end ures, bu t I'm not really into the tigh t
s tu ff. Th at sec tio n had Randy' s name
wri tten all over it. He definitely was the
ma n to bea t there . I fell bad for Randy
when he ran out of gas earlier. He's been
having a bad yea r and hasn't gotten an y
breaks . He's still m y m entor, and even
. tho ugh we're competitors, 1 still look up
to him. He's the grea test. Same goes for
Matt. W hil e Ra ndy, Ty (Dav is) a nd [
basicaIly do this for a living, he's got a
regular job. To consistently finish in the
top five, like Matt d oes, a nd s till hold
down a job takes a lot of dedication."
Stavish said : "After the event, I heard
qu ite a bit of whining about the severity
of the course. But that's wha t an enduro
is s u p posed to b e like, es pecia lly a
National. You can't lay one out wi thou t
tryi ng to take so me points. Last yea r, I
wo n a shorter version of this enduro wi th
a nin e: And two of those were (ea rly)
points. With the addition of the two AA
sec tio ns this yea r, I'm su re we wou ld
have gone into tha t last 13-mile section
wi th scores like eight or nine. But when it
rains, th a t ju st ma kes it in to a r eal
end u ro . Eve ry cou p le of yea rs, it ra ins
lik e this du ring a n eve n t a nd then we
hear the whining. Hey, they can't build a
gu tter arou nd the trails just to make it
eas ier. It sure lets you know wh o's been
eatin' their Wheaties wh en you see wh o
finished."
Third overa Il fini sher Fredette co ncurred.
"Now, that was a full da y of in-your face rid ing ," Fred e tte sa id . "W h en J
talked to the clu b earlier in th e week,
they said they thoug ht the faster riders
mi gh t get bored w ith the ea r ly loo p .
After th e r ains, even th at was pretty
ugly. There were guys struggling even in
the two-track.
'The biggest problem was the und ergrowth and the tree branches that were
hanging over the trail from all of the rain.
"You just couldn't see, and that ma de it
ha rd to get any rh ythm going. And for
100 miles, it was su rvival mod e. It's definitely o ne of the tough est enduros I've
ridden in a couple of yea rs. But tha t last
section - it wa s goi ng to be m iser abl e
regardless of whether it rained or not.
There we re times that it was so tight that
you 'd make a mistake and sta r! to crash
and the trees would just hold you up. It
w as unbeli evabl y ti g h t. Bottlenecks
weren' t reaIly a problem, because there
weren 't eno ugh guys that made it to the
final section. But I did see plen ty of examples of wha t not to do. It wa s a good oldfashioned end uro ."
Senior A rider Pat Feal said, "For me,
it wa s just survival mod e for that last sec-
tion. I've never seen so many logs and
trees in my whole life. There was litis one
hill that literally took eve rythin g I had to
ge t up it. After a w hile, you just hated to
ge t off yo u r bi ke to push becau se yo u
w ould sta rt to cram p up. You'd think
you had just about had enoug h, and then
Stavis h p asses yo u and yo u swea r he
looks like Superman."
Feallinished with a score of 113.
After the eve nt, local District 23 rider
Jesse Blom berg said of his day's ride and
his fourth ove rall finish: "Ma n, tha t was
cool (fi nishing fou rt h overall)! It ju st
doesn't get any better than this . Especially after rid ing that las t sectio n. It was
pretty ugly. I've never seen any thi ng that
tig ht before. Goi ng into today, J never
expected it to be fun - but at times I have
to ad mit it was a blast."
New York State's Mike Slechta had a
similar response to his fifth overa ll iinish.
"Actually, I was happy to see it rain,"
Slech ta said . "Being from out East, it's a
. lot easier for us to co mpete in the ra in
than fo r mos t. Even the tight sec tio ns
Briefly--.,.,. •••_
Pre c e df nq the
e~ e n t : o n Sat ~rday, the
Minnesota Depa "rtme nt of Natural
Resources dedicated 84 miles of exist ing
slnqle and two -track trails in the Paul Bunyan State Fo res t as th e state 's first Off·
Hig hw ay M o torcycl e