Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/707505
VOL. 53 ISSUE 29 JULY 26, 2016 P41 the day, Grant took the win by 42 seconds over Rockstar Energy Racing Husqvarna Factory Rac- ing's Josh Strang, while Steward rounded out the podium another 10 second back. Series points leader Rus- sell Bobbitt, who came into the Rattlesnake Enduro riding the momentum of a two-race win streak, suffered two significant crashes during the day, which dropped him to sixth in the final Pro results and seventh overall. His result, combined with the win by Grant Baylor and a third- place finish by Steward Baylor, tightened up the point standings, with Bobbitt now holding just a nine-point lead over the Baylor brothers, who are tied for sec- ond in the standings. "I'm really happy because I got a lot of valuable points today," said Grant. "I think I'm tied with my brother and we closed in on Russ quite a bit because I think he had a bad day. It really started with that first test, I was able to put a pretty good gap on the field in that one and I carried that momentum into the next test. After that, I was able to cruise a bit and play it safe in the rocks." Strang had his best finish of the season with a second-place finish, courtesy of runner-up finishes in tests two and three. "I happy with the finish, but it's frustrating because I've strug- gled most of the year and then it was so easy today," said Strang. "I need to find out why I rode so good today so I can ride this way every weekend. We've just had a few issues in some of the past couple of races and today we eliminated those issues, plus the track today was fun. It was fresh trail and that made it enjoyable. Now if we can just carry this momentum into the last three races." Steward Baylor, who switched to a SRT-backed two-stroke KTM for the remainder of the series and was making his debut on his 2017 KTM 250 XC, rounded out the Pro-class podium, coming from sixth after the fifth test to third after the final test. Steward got off to a slow start to the race; finishing seventh in the opening test, and it wasn't until the final test that he finally caught fire. "I do better in the longer tests because it takes me a bit to get warmed up and all of these tests were short except for the last one and it was nine miles long," said Steward. "This is one of my favorite tracks and it's usually moist but today it was dry and I just took a while to get comfort- able because it wasn't a physi- cally demanding race and I tend to excel in physically demanding conditions." While Steward finished third in the Pro division, Rekluse Expert AA rider Thorn Devlin surprised everyone by finishing third in the overall standings on a Thorne Cycles KTM, finishing the race two seconds faster than Stew- ard. Devlin signed up late and rode the event from the 89th row, so he was off the radar for most of the day. "These rocks are a lot like what I ride at home, so I was pretty comfortable out there, even though I was fighting the lappers coming from a back row," said Devlin. Sixth overall was Lafferty's Air- Group teammate Nick Fahringer, who won the fourth test of the day and was in the running for a podium position before suck- ing dust into his engine after the fourth test. Chris Bach made a rare ap- pearance in the Enduro series at the Rattlesnake National and kicked the day off by winning the opening test, but things went downhill from there for the JCR Honda rider, who eventually finished the event in 11th. RPM Racing's Drew Higgins finished 12th ahead of former Pro motocross and factory rider Broc Hepler, who rode a Gas Gas to 13th. CN OVERALL RESULTS 1. Grant Baylor (Yam) 2. Josh Strang (Hus) 3. Thorne Devlin (KTM) Exp-AA 4. Steward Baylor (KTM) 5. Ryder Lafferty (Hus) 6. Nick Fahringer (Hus) 7. Russell Bobbitt (KTM) 8. Jesse Groemm (KTM) 9. Cory Buttrick (KTM) 10. Craig DeLong (Hus)