Barnes Wins First Career U.S. Sprint Enduro
P
hoenix Honda Racing's Cody
Barnes and Am Pro Yamaha's
Liam Draper couldn't have been
more competitive over the two
days of competition at this
weekend's King of the Mountain
Sprint Enduro in Kingwood, West
Virginia. Barnes came out on
top of the opening day's event,
while Draper won day two. After
tabulations for the two days of
racing were made, Barnes took
a 2.5-second victory over Draper
on Saturday, while Draper came
back and won Sunday's event by
0.592 of a second over Barnes,
which gave Barnes his first-ever
Pro 1 overall U.S. Sprint Enduro
victory by 1.5 seconds over
Draper.
On Saturday, Barnes seemed
to have the upper hand in the
cross test, winning two of three
cross tests, in addition to one
of the enduro tests. Meanwhile,
Draper won two tests, one en
-
duro and one cross.
Barnes was obviously ec-
static with his first overall win. "It
sucked to lose today [Sunday] by
just 0.5 seconds, but I was able
to get it done with the overall
for the weekend, which was
the goal," said Barnes. "It came
down to some close racing, and
it could have gone either way. I
had a tip-over in the enduro test,
and that made me ride pretty
timid the next time through.
They were not bad crashes; it
was kind of just tuck the front
and nothing major. I'm just
happy to finally get this one in
the bag. It was a close one."
Draper took his runner-up
finish in stride, having already
racked up three overall wins on
the season. "That was a good
one, huh?" said Draper. "It was a
little muddy yesterday, and the
cross was quite wet, but today
WIND
IN THE
P36
Cody Barnes
captured his first
career U.S. Sprint
Enduro victory.
PHOTOS: ART PEPIN
