Hart Clinches AMA West Extreme
Off-Road Championship At Donner
T
rystan Hart won the Donner
Hard Enduro for a second
year, clinching the AMA West Ex-
treme Off-Road Championship.
The Donner win was his fifth con-
secutive victory of the season.
The AMA IRC U.S. Hard En-
duro Series, presented by Inside
Enduro, went back west to the
Donner Ski Ranch in Norden,
California. Brian Garrahan com-
bined this USHE round with an
AMA D36 Hare Scramble race
the following day, which attracted
a mass of spectators to the main
sections of the hard enduro. More
than 175 racers lined up at the
base of the ski resort on Saturday,
and battled for over 3.5 hours
through granite slabs, waterfalls,
steep hills, snow drifts, and relent-
less rock gardens. The altitude
and weather always play a factor
at Donner, but fortunately, consis-
tent winds kept the temperatures
from getting too high.
Hart was out front from the very
beginning and was simply un-
catchable. With Spectator Hill be-
ing a main section within the first
mile of the course, it created a
challenge for riders to get through
cleanly to chase Hart down, even
some of the pros struggled.
Hundreds of spectators lined
the granite slabs to watch the
amateurs push themselves
through this challenging terrain.
Ryder LeBlond and Keith Curtis
battled behind Hart the entire race,
with Curtis pulling ahead and hold-
ing off LeBlond to the finish.
Colton Haaker suffered a me-
chanical after crashing in the first
part of Spectator Hill, forcing him
IN
THE
WIND
P50
(L-R) Keith Curtis,
Trystan Hart and
Ryder LeBlond made
up the Donner Hard
Enduro podium.
