history, could do no better than
22nd out of 23 countries in that
division, the loss of Kailub Rus-
sell to injury and Thad Duvall to
a bike failure costing too much
to do any better despite some
standout performances by the
others.
And top mention for a stand-
out performance has to go to
Ryan Sipes who, in only his
second Six Days and first time
on the U.S. World Trophy team,
made history by not only winning
his class (E2) but doing so with a
score that made him the fastest
man of the week overall!
"It's an unbelievable feeling to
do this; it's just awesome be-
cause moving over into off-road
has been a tough transition for
me, but to do this and be the
first [American to win the overall]
is an unbelievable feeling," he
pronounced. "I just feel like the
weight's off my shoulders and the
stress is gone! We can celebrate
now; we can talk about it now!
"I didn't want to talk about it
all week. The jinx thing I don't
believe in, but I didn't want to let
my focus stray. I just wanted to
ride my best and be smart and
make good decisions. All week
I was holding onto the lead and
that's stressful!"
Sipes sealed his unprecedent-
ed achievement by winning his
final E2 moto, getting the lead
shortly after the first turn and
pulling away from his weeklong
nemesis, Australian leader
Daniel Milner. Sipes managed
to pad the cushion over his rival
from 35 to 43 seconds when the
week's entire gamut of scores
was added up.
While France stole the win
from Australia in World Trophy,
the Aussies weren't denied in
Junior World Trophy, led by E3
winner Daniel Sanders. Australia
trounced Sweden by 15 and a
half minutes with Italy another
11 minutes back. Team USA's
squad was cut in half, losing
Layne Michaels to a wrist injury
on Day 1 and Nick Davis to bike
failure on Day 5. That left only
Grant Baylor and injured brother
Steward Baylor to finish it out,
which they did in style, though
the final team results wouldn't
reflect this.
Australia owned the Women's
World Trophy division all week,
its three riders going 1-2-3 in the
final standings. After six days,
they had nearly 56 minutes on
France and an hour and 15 on
Sweden, with Finland and Team
USA's Rachel Gutish, Mandi
Mastin and Jamie Wells rounding
out the top five.
The GoFasters.com trio of
Reid Brown, Nate Ferderer
and Brian Garrahan may not
have been able to land on the
podium, but they finished with
flourish. Ferderer set the fastest
C3 time of the day and Garrahan
followed suit with the fourth-fast-
est C2 time that also made him
the quickest of all American Club
team riders.
The Boise Ridge Riders (Kale
Elworthy, Skyler Howes and A.J.
Lehr) finished 12th, the Missouri
Mudders (Ryan Kudla, Kyle
McDonal and Mike Pillar) were
13th, the Elizabeth Scott team
(Jason Densley, Fred Hoess and
Brian Storrie) placed 15th, Eric
Cleveland (Jubal Brown, Geof-
frey Sanders and Dillon Shep-
pard) earned 22nd and the Tony
Agonis team (Ben Kelley, John
Kelley and Josh Toth) got 29th.
We will have more on the Slo-
vakia Six Days in our next issue.
Mark Kariya
VOL. 52 ISSUE 37 SEPTEMBER 15, 2015 P25
PHOTOGRAPHY
BY
MARK
KARIYA
Ryan Sipes (24) is the
first American to take the
overall individual victory
at the ISDE.
