VOLUME ISSUE JANUARY , P59
WORDS AND PHOTOGRAPHY
BY SHAN MOORE
F
MF/KTM's Johnny Girroir
dominated the first day of
competition at the opening
round of the 2023 U.S. Sprint
Enduro Series held at the South
of the Border MX facility in
Hamer, South Carolina, topping
FXR GasGas' Layne Michael by
nine seconds. AmPro Yamaha's
Zach Osborne, who came out of
retirement after hanging it up at
the end of the 2021 motocross
season due to a back injury,
came on strong the following
day, winning Sunday's event by a
mere .005 seconds over Girroir.
After the times from the two
days were combined, Girroir
claimed the overall win, beat
-
ing out Osborne by 11 seconds,
thanks to his strong perfor-
mance on Saturday. Enduro
Engineering GasGas' Josh Toth,
who was third on each day,
finished third overall.
Girroir looked in control of
Sunday's event until a slight
hiccup in the final cross test al
-
lowed Osborne to close in.
"I can't believe how tight it
was on Sunday," said Girroir. "It
was just five-hundredths of a
second separating us going into
that last test. I knew Zach had
a problem there on Saturday
and got stuck in the mud. But
overall, he was flying. He won a
woods test and then he took all
three cross test wins in the Pro
1 class [Angus Riordan actually
had the fastest time in the first
cross test from the Pro 2 divi
-
sion]. So, I knew Zach was going
to be tough today. I just put my
OPENING-ROUND WIN
GETS
