OFF ROAD
KENDA AMA NATIONAL ENDURO SERIES
ROUND 1/FEBRUARY 1, 2015
SUMTER, SOUTH CAROLINA
P88
ting a win against the best of the
best is impressive, no matter the
circumstances. Amazingly, 825
riders showed up to race the
Sumter race and the pro class
featured the top off-roaders in
the country. In the end, howev-
er, Baylor topped Russell by 13
seconds for the overall win.
"It's been a longtime coming;
ever since 2012," said Baylor.
"Obviously, this is where I want-
ed to be; I wanted to be back on
the center of the box."
Baylor's win wasn't easy by
any means, and he only won two
of the six tests, but the former
KTM factory rider was more
consistent in the remaining tests
than the competition, and that's
what earned him the first win of
the season.
"Today started out pretty
rough, I had a big get-off in test
one," said Baylor. "I thought I
did a lot worse than what I did, I
came out of a lot of tests disap-
pointed in myself. I was really
wanting to ride better and make
less mistakes, but I wasn't able
to. I made a lot of careless er-
rors, but I kept pushing, trying to
make up for them. I was rid-
ing good when I wasn't on the
ground or running into trees."
Russell, who is giving the
National Enduro Series a try
in 2015, finished out the race
in second, although he nearly
caught Baylor in the final test for
the win.
The FMF/KTM rider got off
to a great start by winning the
opening test of the day, but then
struggled in tests two and three.
"It was good, bad and ugly,"
said Russell. "I had a pretty
good crash in the second test
and didn't start off too good. I
didn't really get going until the
end of the third test, and Stu had
a pretty good gap on my by that
point. But I rode pretty decent
from the third test on and I found
a flow in the final three tests."
Russell came on strong in the
end and even won the final test,
but his time in test two, which
was only 10
th
fastest, was too
much of a deficit to overcome.
"I'm just going back and work-
ing on the things I need to work
on for the next round and see
how it goes," said Russell. "If it
works out, then I'll ride the rest
of the series, but if I don't ac-
complish the goal I set for myself
at the next round then you prob-
