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INTERVIEW FMF/KTM FACTORY OFF-ROAD RACER TAYLOR ROBERT P86 few of the races and she was talking to some of the other wives and they were like, 'Yeah, Taylor has really surprised us.' She said that pretty much all the Europeans were pretty impressed with me, so I had a good time. Tell me about your En- duroGP (overall) win at the finale in France. Honestly I wasn't really even paying attention to the GP class because that was something new this year. None of the riders really paid attention to it be- cause our bonuses and cham- pionship stuff were all about our class wins, not necessarily GP wins. The last race, the guys I was battling with were in my own class as well (E2), so I won my class and I happened to win the GP at the same time. It was a little bit of weather and terrain that helped me out, and just having a nice summer break off. I was pretty exhausted after the first half of the season. Basically from December (2015) until June, I was spending at least one or two weeks a month in a different country. After the race in July I was able to be home for a month and a half, so that was nice, time to get a little recharge. But yeah, the terrain in France was similar to west coast—deserty, dry, hard-pack with some rocks. And we didn't get any rain, so that was nice. I was really excited I was able to pull it off in the last race. Would you say you were able to achieve your goals for the season? Yeah I really wanted to get on the podium and I was in top- three in the points for a good majority of the season and then I had three bad races – Finland, Sweden and Italy. I was like fourth and fifth in my class and I lost a lot of points there. I really wanted to get on the podium in my class but I missed it by about five points. It's something to look forward to if I go back. Is that the plan? To go back? Maybe. I have a couple op- tions. I haven't signed anything yet so I'm not sure what I'm doing. Speaking of back home, you recently decided to race a national hare and hound and went out and won it! How did that come about? It was an opportunity with KTM. They asked me if I wanted to try one. Maybe in the future I would like to try some rally stuff, and hare and hound is our best gateway into rally we have here in the States so it was like, 'If you have any interest in doing rally in the future, maybe you should try a hare and hound.' It was actually pretty fun. I've done desert races. I've done Baja and some local Arizona races, but I've never done a true national hare and hound. It's defi- nitely a little different; going really fast over terrain that you don't know is different. Because even at Baja, you know pretty much exactly where you're going. It was a good experience and I'm glad they gave me the opportu- nity to try that. You've been a long time EnduroCross racer; does it feel weird to you to not be a part of that this year? Yeah, it does! Obviously I know all those guys really well and we've been racing together Robert is looking forward to another assault on the EWC in 2017.