by five points over Michael going
into Sunday's round, in addition
to the 16 seconds he had on Gir-
roir for the weekend overall.
On Sunday, it was Girroir's
turn to shine, as he won five of
the six tests for Sunday's win.
The rider from Massachusetts
also made up the 16 seconds
he had given up the day before
to Toth, beating out the KTM
rider by three-tenths of a second
to claim the overall win for the
weekend. Toth finished second
for the day, which was more than
enough to claim take the cham-
pionship title ahead of Michael,
who was fourth again behind
Draper for the day.
"Man, it's such a relief," said
Toth. "It was stressful coming
into this weekend. I had such a
bad round the last one and put
myself in the hole when I had
the points lead. Coming into this
weekend down, I knew I needed
to beat Layne both days. Like I
said, it is stressful, but I knew
what I needed to do. Just a huge
relief, really."
Girroir's overall win was his
second in a row since returning
from injury.
"I rode good Saturday, but I
just couldn't stay off the ground
and ended up having three
crashes," said Girroir. "Josh was
riding phenomenal. He aced it
and did what he had to do. I was
sixteen seconds down coming
into Sunday and I went to sleep
last night knowing that I had to
come out swinging today. That's
exactly what I did. I had a little
four-second cushion going into
the last test, and Josh beat me
by 3.7. It was as close as racing
gets."
Michael put up a valiant fight
all year, dealing with a shoulder
injury for much of the season.
"Unfortunately, at the last
GNCC I banged my other shoul-
der up and the pain was pretty
bad so I definitely struggled with
it yesterday," said Michael. "I
tried to keep it close until the
end, and I did, but unfortunately,
there in the last cross test I had
a crash that kind of flustered me
VOLUME 59 ISSUE 25 JUNE 21, 2022 P45
Johnny Girroir was the
weekend's overall winner.
