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Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/128335
By th e t ime the 17 AA ride rs so rt ed the mse lve s o ut and
ente red the woods fo r the first time, C hris Thiele was leading
the way. with fellow Yamaha pilots Brandon Fo rre ster, Mark
G~Yj ~nd Leivan in pursuit. While T hiele ~sed the clean air to his
actva(ltage and started to pull away. Leivan wen t to work and
got '~ round Gay on a long straightaway and then closed in on
Forieste r. The fresh -cut sect ion of trail see med to favor Leivan,
as he overtook Forrester and th en ca ught and passed T hiele
eight'mile s into the 11.7-mile course to take the lead.
knew the last mile or so would be really dusty and the
leader would have an advantage . so I wanted to be in fro nt by
t he n," t he Answe r/D unlo p/Re nth a llArai/FMF-backed Le iva n
explained. "It worked out tha t I was able to get by everyone.
·1
open a bit of a gap. and do my own thing fro m there on."
That turned ou t to be th e case , as Le ivan wa s nearly a
minute up on Thiele by the one-ho ur mark (two laps). The time
separation between Thie le and Forrester was another minute.
while Iowa ride r Jamie Driskell. Gay. KTM rider Tracy Bauman ,
and Tea m Green racers Caleb Wohlen and Chris Nesbitt were
all less than a minute apart , and things stayed that way for much
of the third lap as well.
With four laps in the boo ks, Le rvan's cre w informed him t hat
Th iel e had pu lled to w ith in 17 se co nds . and just one lap
rem ained. Le ivan charged hard thr ougho ut the final lap to avoid
a last-lap batt le, but it didn't matt er in the end , as Thiele had
tire trou ble and was unable to make a charge . Le ivan finished
with a lead of a minut e and 45 seco nds over Th iele, w hile
Forrester rounded out the top three with a very consistent ride
on his YZ4S0, just 24 ticks in back of Thie le .
Fourt h o n the day we nt t o first-year AA rider Gay. w ho
e qualed his best finish of the year with a solid perfo rman ce.
Moosel Muzzy /Scott/N ·St yle/ RK Ch ain-supported Nes bitt
fough t his way forw ard the en tire race afte r a poo r start and
e nded up just a few seconds beh ind Gay at the finish on his
KX2S0F.
RESULTS
O/A : I. Steve Leiva.n (Yam); 2. Chris Thiele (Yam); 3. Brandon Forre ste r
(Yam);