lap. And while Baylor closed the
gap slightly on lap three, Russell
stretched it to 1:38 heading into
the sixth and final lap.
Cooling his heels a bit to avoid
an unnecessary mistake, Russell
crossed the finish line with 44
seconds to spare over Baylor.
"No better way to end the
season than a win, and especially
here at Ironman," said Russell. "It's
just such a big event; it's crazy the
amount of people out there and ev-
eryone here. We've been so close
so many times. We got that one
win earlier, but finally did it again."
Russell has been in position to
win several other times this year
and would lead the race only to
crash out of the lead like he did
two weeks before at the Buck-
wheat 100.
On lap one, FMF/KTM's Josh
Toth was running a fast pace in
second ahead of AmPro Ya-
maha's Steward Baylor, but by
the end of the lap, Russell had
pulled out a 58-second gap on
the duo. Baylor moved into the
runner-up slot on lap two and
tried to run down Russell, only to
find himself down by one minute
and 34 seconds at the end of the
ROUND 13 / OCTOBER 13, 2022
IRONMAN RACEWAY / CRAWFORDSVILLE, INDIANA
P80
OFF-ROAD I GRAND NATIONAL CROSS-COUNTRY SERIES
