Cycle News

OFF ROAD 89TH FIM INTERNATIONAL SIX DAYS ENDURO NOVEMBER 3-8, 2014 SAN JUAN, ARGENTINA P50 My Own Race: 25 KAILUB RUSSELL 2ND E2/ GOLD MEDAL Of his final moto E2 win, Kailub Russell said, "I got a good start and that was the biggest thing because it's really hard to pass on this track. I hugged the inside and came out with the holeshot. I took a look back and at one point I was only one second ahead of Matthew Phillips for third overall. So I took a look over my shoulder and saw that he was right behind me and I was like, 'Damn, I can't get rid of this guy!' He was riding good. But I just rode really well and hit my corners good. The track was really tough because some of the slower guys in the back, they were blowing the corners out every lap. I had a lot of fun." 27 STEWARD BAYLOR 10TH E2/ GOLD MEDAL "It's been really tough," Steward Baylor said. "I started out day one with food poisoning. I could hardly see, could hardly stand up. I was so weak I couldn't get out of bed in the morning—I kind of rolled out of bed, literally. It was tough to get on a bike and try to compete with those guys. Day two, I took a minute and a half off my time from day one and it landed me 17th overall for day two and put me in the top 20 overall for both days." 433 CORY BUTTRICK 1ST C3/ GOLD MEDAL At the end of day five, Cory Buttrick said, "It was one of those deals where it's pretty tough because for just about any team around here, pretty much the wheels came off on day three. It was pretty unfortunate. Nick [Burson] had his issues and I ended up dropping 12 minutes that day as well. I think [Justin] Sode maybe lost a few trying to get me back because I ran out of fuel as well so we were nursing it in. Yesterday was just survival day as well in all the sand and that powder test. I really, really didn't push whatsoever. I more or less just short-shifted the bike and tried to get it through the day so it was a good, nasty survival day. To- day, I got to open it up a bit again and let her sing. Every- thing's okay; it's racing and that's how it goes. This race is pretty unforgiving. You can't really make too many mistakes around here. It's unfortunate, but at least we weren't the only ones that suffered bike losses." 533 JUSTIN SODE 9TH C2/ SILVER MEDAL Justin Sode demonstrated the team spirit required at Six Days when he sacrificed his score to make sure teammate Cory Buttrick made it to the next check after running out of fuel on day three. Sode said, "I was going through the transfer to check four. Cory was on the side of the trail so I stopped and made sure he was okay. He said he was just changing his filter because his bike quit running. He checked it and it was out of gas. I had a good bit left in my tank still so I took my CamelBak bladder out and put some gas out of my tank into his. I didn't want to run out, but I wanted to get him to the check, too, so we stopped about three times total and got him back to the pits. We were pretty much out of fuel when we got there, but we made it, we got him back. I ended up losing five minutes total and I think he ended up losing 11 total, but it's better than a DNF." 333 NICK BURSON DNF C3 The runner-up in the SRT AMA Hare & Hound National Championship Series that concluded the day before he flew to Argentina, Nick Burson expected to do well in his first Six Days and was on that track aboard his Beta 300 RR as a member of the Beta USA Club team with Cory But- trick and Justin Sode. "It's fun! It was rough," he said. "It's really rough. The first two tests we do twice a day and twice tomorrow, they're probably the worst ones, even the first time through. Three and four are really fun so we'll get to them once more tomorrow. It was good; I had no problems on day one except I fell down once in the first test, like five corners into the first special test of the day! Got that out of the way. I was 20 minutes from the last row so I never had clean air in any test and passed the same guys in every single test." That changed for day two as the start order is shuffled according to the previous day's results, but it was for naught as he burned up the clutch on day three which led to him running out of fuel and a DNF. 402 PAUL KRAUSE DNF C2 A desert veteran who recently turned 50, Paul Krause found the going in Argentina familiar: "The terrain and ev- erything about it, it's all stuff I've ridden before. It was all somewhere in the desert I've been across every one of these sections and I thought, 'Okay, this should be good.' I was frustrated my speed wasn't very good; I was slower than I wanted to be, but really I was putting in okay times and I was staying on time and I was clicking along. Unfortu- nately, I didn't change an air filter soon enough probably; it sucked dirt through and cooked the motor. I was just doing them once a day and the first two days had been perfect; everything inside it was clean and nice. That day three, we rode more silt that day than I think I've ever ridden in any event I've been in, and it was so deep that you were just stuck in it and it was coming up from the bottom and getting sucked right into the airbox."

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