FEATURE
ISDE TRAINING CAMP
P86
them, and do whatever needs
to be successful. Kind of like
a leader figure for me. It takes
a lot of time but it's something
that is my passion as well to
have the USA to hopefully win.
That's the ultimate goal. We
won it in Women's, we won it
in Junior, but we never won
the Trophy. So that's kind of
the ultimate goal, is to win the
Trophy Team championship.
So financially, KTM has put
a lot of effort. We had a golf
tournament where KTM was
title sponsor so that they kind
of covered all the expenses, so
anything we made went directly
to support the riders. And then
when we go to Six Days, there's
going to be about half a dozen
KTM staff attending assigned to
this event so that I have people
that I know and trust that I can
assign tasks and make sure that
everything goes smooth."
Not to be overly optimistic, but
the prospect of our teams doing
well this year are looking good,
thanks to Kallonen's efforts, and
also due to the terrain the riders
will encounter in Slovakia, which
is quite similar to east coast
USA.
"The terrain is going to be like
this where, we are now in Ohio,"
says Kallonen. "There's going to
be a little bit more hills I believe,
and a little bit steeper mountain-
side on one day. But it will be
darker dirt with a few rocks. It
could become fairly soft if it rains
and that time of the year there's
about 40 percent chance of rain
showers that race week. So if
it rains it might get a little soft,
which is good. We have actu-
ally had rain here in Ohio now
leading up to this training camp,
so we will get definitely a taste
of the wetness as well for sure.
But I believe that overall our
team, most of them, are used to
it already. Most of them are East
Coast riders. They're used to this
kind of terrain and weather as
well." CN
Kailub Russell
is now a
dedicated
ISDE racer.
He's not going
to get second
place.
