ISDE CELEBRATION: THE WRAP

ISDE TRIPLE WIN

Team USA’s Taylor Robert. Photo by Brandon Krause

America just finished its best ISDE ever. Taylor Robert and Kailub Russell went 1-2 in the E2 (450cc) class, Ryan Sipes was second in the E1 (250cc) class and Steward Baylor was third in the E3 (500cc) class. Together, they topped the World Trophy competition for only the second time in U.S. history. On top of that, Rebecca Sheets, Brandy Richards and Tarah Gieger won the Woman’s Trophy for the U.S. The top club team was Ricky Russell, Dante Oliveira and Austin Walton, also for the U.S. And the Junior Trophy team (for riders 23 years old and younger) of Grant Baylor, Ben Kelley and Josh Toth was second.

I come from an era where the U.S. ISDE team was usually around fifth place, year after year. In that same period, the Motocross des Nations team was unbeatable. Times have changed. There are a number of different reasons for the rise of the Americans at the Six-Days. The biggest single reason is a change of format in off-road racing over here. All our races used to be endurance runs like the GNCC series, whereas sprint speed was critical at the ISDE. Now, with events like the Full Gas Sprint Enduro Series and even the reformatted National Enduro Series, our guys can sprint with the best in the world. On the Euro side, we have seen a decline in the importance of the Enduro GP series, which also favors sprint speed. It’s also interesting that the second best showing came from the Aussies. They used to be our off-the-podium brothers, now they are incredible. Australians Trophy rider Daniel Sanders was the individual overall winner this year.