RIDE REVIEW I BEN KELLEY'S FMF K TM FACTORY RACING GNCC 350 XC-F
P80
(Above) Ben Kelley's
GNCC Championship-
winning 350 is purpose
built to rip. (Left) Casey
Lytle, former pro MX and
Supercross racer and
head of the U.S.-based
KTM Research and
Development team, was
nice enough to hold an
umbrella for us. He made
the race-time decision to
sit this one out but still
stood in the rain to help.
What a guy! Notice how
clean our gear is?
I wasn't going to not race
a factory race bike, given the
chance. But it wasn't necessar-
ily a reasonable thing to do this
day. In the moment, it was much
smarter than my original plan.
My original plan was to race
two bikes: One, the newly
released 2022 KTM 350 XC-F
Factory Edition you can go to
your dealership and buy today;
Two, this fire-breathing weapon
you can't buy. Mother Nature
First, did you see how the GNCC
racing finale in Indiana ended up?
It was a mess! This poor bike and
everyone else went through a wet
hell that day, I've never been outside
while that much rain was falling—and
stayed outside. Worse yet, I was on
a starting line getting ready to race.
When I rolled up, it wasn't raining,
and the soybean and cornfields
were damp. By the time my umbrella
guy Casey Lytle (yep, that Casey
Lytle) left me, there was a small river
rolling between my feet.
MOTHER
NATURE WINS
