podium of the year with a third.
"Obviously coming back from
an injury, I didn't know where
I stood," said DeLong. "Since I
broke my hand, the most I rode
was about 30 minutes, so I had
no idea how I was going to do. I
was just hanging on as best as
I could. I've only ridden a couple
of races that were that dusty,
and that was pretty bad, just
trying to get as close as I could
to Lyndon, and when I got the
chance, I made the pass stick.
After that, I blew up as much
dust as I could; I didn't want
nobody getting close to me. So,
I'm happy to end on top."
Draper finished up the season
on a roll, achieving four podiums
in a row in his first year in the
was helped back to the pits.
On lap four, DeLong drew
close enough to pass Snod
-
grass for the lead just before the
infamous Ironman
Hill. Draper
got around Snodgrass as well,
at the top.
Due to the dust, the riders
spread out along the trail, mostly
riding solo through the woods.
DeLong was starting to en
-
counter lappers, which meant
he
no longer had a clear track,
and Draper began to close. But
DeLong was able to keep a safe
distance over the New Zea
-
lander to claim his second win
of
the season, banking a bit of
momentum for the 2025 sea
-
son. Draper was second overall,
and
Snodgrass claimed his first
Red Bear Rocky Mountain Kawa
-
saki's Steward Baylor was seen
pushing
his bike back to the pits
with mechanical issues.
"The last few races have obvi-
ously been terrible," said Baylor.
"Since
the championship was
out of our reach, we just played
around with some different things
to try to get the bike firing a little
bit sooner off the line and ended
up making some mistakes. But
it was a good time to do live
testing. It's hard to replicate race
conditions during training."
Another midrace DNF came
when FMF KTM Factory Rac
-
ing Team Landers' Grant Davis,
the winner of the John
Penton
GNCC from the XC2 250 Pro
class, sustained an injury and
ROUND 13 / OCTOBER 27, 2024
IRONMAN RACEWAY / CRAWFORDSVILLE, INDIANA
OFF-ROAD I PROGRESSIVE GRAND NATIONAL CROSS COUNTRY SERIES, PRESENTED BY SPECIALIZED
P84
Australia's Lyndon Snodgrass finished
out the season on the podium.
