making it to the pits and replac-
ing his shift lever, Toth could not
restart
his bike and was forced
to drop out.
Girroir put on a big push near
the end of lap three and was
closing on Baylor, sitting just
five seconds behind the XC1
class leader, but got stuck in a
rut on the final lap and dropped
down to seventh.
At the nine-mile marker, Bay
-
lor passed Davis to take over the
physical lead, although Davis
still held the overall lead on
adjusted time.
Desperately wanting to take
the overall win, and probably re
-
membering that "if you ain't first,
you're
last," Baylor put his nose
to the grindstone and made up
the one minute and 50 second
deficit to pass Davis on the final
lap to take the overall win. Davis
ended up second overall and
first in the XC2 division, while
DeLong was third overall and
second XC1 rider.
"That was brutal," said Baylor.
"It wasn't easy going down in
the first turn, but I got back up
there and used the XC2 class
as markers to see where the
bad spots were. I still took a few
bad lines and got hung up a few
times on the way to the front,
but I was wasting no time. I
knew I wanted to be in the front.
"My goggles were covered,
and I couldn't see; it was too
blurry with the mud, but I pulled
into the pits, got new goggles,
new gloves and sprayed the
seat off. It was not a mile later
I ruined my gloves and goggles,
trashed the seat, and I was just
sliding all over the place, so I
gave up a lot of time to Grant. I
knew it was going to be tough.
"When I saw I had three miles
to go, I knew I needed to put
a minute on him, but I knew I
gained a minute at that point
just to catch him. I thought it
would be near impossible, but
it was the luck of the draw. He
went down in a mudhole. I knew
his gloves and goggles would
be ruined, and I did everything I
could. I mean, I annihilated the
last half of the course, just wide-
open, and I was able to make it
happen."
Even though he led most of
the race, Davis was still happy
with second overall and first in
the XC2 class.
VOLUME 62 ISSUE 10 MARCH 11, 2025 P39
Grant Davis put
up a good fight,
finishing second
overall and
winning the XC2
Pro class.
Former GNCC champ
Craig DeLong got on
the podium.
