Eight weeks of “couch surfing” doesn’t stop Cody Webb winning his sixth straight Kenda Tennessee Knockout ahead of Manuel Lettenbichler and Mario Roman. 

The multi-round format at Tennessee Knockout at the Sequatchie course mixed slippery and challenging conditions this weekend but couldn’t stop Cody Webb from returning after a foot injury to top the podium ahead of an invasion of riders from Europe.

262 Amateurs competed two-races on Saturday with the top 30 riders progressing to the four round Sunday race alongside the 31 pre-qualified pro riders. 

Hawaii’s Kekoa Estrella took the Amateur win to earn the AMA Amateur Extreme Enduro Grand National Championship and move forward to Sunday.

The Sunday morning program started with a ‘Hot Lap’ on a mile long course which Webb won with a 4:33 lap to earn the first starting position for the next Knockout round. Wade Young, the 2018 Red Bull Romaniacs winner, was second with 4:43, ahead of Manuel Lettenbichler (5:12), Mario Roman (5:26) and Colton Haaker in fifth (6:06).  

Round two

The second round sent the riders out on a 14 mile loop in thirty second intervals, based on the hot lap times. Young and Lettenbichler hauled in quickly Webb and the three riders battled until Young finally opened the gap in the last few miles. 

Young set the fastest time at 1:08:54, Lettenbichler was second at 1:09:30 and Webb third with 1:10:20. Roman was fourth and Austria’s Lars Enockl came home fifth at 1:19:57. The fastest twenty-six riders moved on to round three.

Round three switched to a multi-rider head-to-head format for the fastest 25 riders split into five groups of five with a 26th rider was added to group six as the LCQ alternate. Haaker, Lettenbichler, Webb, Roman and Enockl won their respective groups to earn front row starting positions. The second and third place finishers in each group also moved on to the fifteen-rider main event.

Main event

The main event moved back to the short course for a 30-minute plus one lap battle, which Webb took after 41:31 racing. Haaker jumped into the lead off the start and led the field into the woods but struggled on a tough climb exiting the water fall that proved to be one of the most challenging obstacles. 

Webb capitalized on Haaker’s mistake and quickly opened a small gap with Roman and Young not far behind with Haaker and Lettenbichler 20 plus seconds back. On lap two, Young and Haaker struggled again on the same hill allowing Lettenbichler passed with Young also taking Haaker in the melee.  

The top five remained the same for several laps with Roman closing in on Webb. At the halfway point, Roman began to fall back towards Lettenbichler who went passed for second on lap five of seven. 

This ended up setting the final top five results, with Webb finishing 1:28 ahead of Lettenbichler. Roman was 2:15 behind the leader and Young fourth, 5:17 back. Haaker went a lap down on the final lap but held fifth.

Webb broke his foot at Erzberg in June, so he had limited preparation for the 2018 TKO: “I was definitely worried, especially with all the competition coming over from Europe,” Webb said. “Some of Hard Enduro’s biggest hitters came over here and I had eight weeks of couch surfing and only eight days on the bike since my injury so I was happy to get another win. I kind of conserved some energy in those early races and I think that helped me for the main, but I still felt like I was going to die out there.” 

Lettenbichler, the twenty-year-old German who has had great season, including podium finishes at Erzberg and Romaniacs was impressive in his first TKO visit. “It was a nice event, I really enjoyed it, the main event was super gnarly with the slippery rocks and humidity, it is not like this in Germany,” Lettenbichler said. “I am super proud of second place and I passed Mario a few laps from the end, so I am stoked about that.”

Roman finished third at the TKO for the second consecutive year. “I came here with more preparation because last year I suffered a lot, so I prepared more for the short, sprint main event,” Roman said. “I have to thank Sherco USA and the friends I met last year for helping me for this event.”

Trystan Hart had a pretty quiet day to finish sixth in his first ever TKO. Enockl finished seventh on his GasGas. Tennessee’s Jordan Ashburn finished eighth on his Beta. Ben Kelley took ninth on his Trail Jesters KTM and Chris Satterfield rounded out the top ten on his KTM.