IN
THE
WIND
P36
BUTTRICK WINS ZINK RANCH NATIONAL
ENDURO, BOBBITT CLINCHES TITLE
C
ory Buttrick won the battle
but Russell Bobbitt won the
war at the John Zink National
Enduro on the John Zink Ranch
in Sand Springs, Oklahoma,
home of the U.S. ISDE in 1994.
The October 22 event was or-
ganized and hosted by the Tulsa
Trail Riders, who kicked off the
event with a grass track test in
the same location as the grass
track used at the Six Days in '94.
Buttrick's win was his first in four
years in the Kenda AMA National
Enduro Series while Bobbitt left
town with a fifth national enduro
title after finishing the day sixth
overall.
The last time Buttrick won a
national enduro was in 2012. Af-
ter that, the Ohio native suffered
several injuries, which have kept
him on the comeback trail for
the last few years. This year,
however, Buttrick has remained
relatively healthy and he has
worked hard to build back his
speed and his conditioning. It all
paid off in Oklahoma where But-
trick won two of the seven tests
and never finished lower than
third in the remaining tests, giv-
ing him the win by 21 seconds.
Heading into the final test
of the day, Buttrick held a
22-second lead over Special-
ized Performance KTM's Jesse
Groemm. Like Buttrick, Groemm
is an interesting story. He suf-
fered a seizure just a few weeks
before the race, which the doc-
tors think was related to a con-
cussion he suffered two years
ago. The New Jersey rider was
cleared to get back on a motor-
cycle just two weeks ago and
this weekend he kicked things
off by winning the opening two
tests. He had a few problems
in the fifth test, though, which
allowed Buttrick to pull a small
gap heading into test seven,
which Buttrick held to the finish.
Third place went to Buttrick's
SRT KTM teammate Steward
Baylor, who has been in conten-
tion for the title all year. Baylor
competed on the U.S. Junior
Team at this year's ISDE in
Spain along with his brother
Grant, and both were still a bit
jet-lagged in Oklahoma.
"We just finished over 1000
Russell Bobbitt
is champ again.
He is now a
five-time AMA
National Enduro
Champion.
PHOTOGRAPHY
BY
SHAN
MOORE
