Mark Kariya | August 30, 2017
2017 ISDE France Day Three Results – U.S. ISDE team in France: They’re down. They’re up! And they’re down again.
2017 ISDE France Day Three Results
Christophe Nambotin (203) leads a group through the village of Cornil on a much cooler day. That did nothing, however, to cool the pace that he and the rest of the French World Trophy team set as they continued to lead the class thanks in part to Nambotin being the event’s E3 and overall individual leader. Photo: Mark Kariya
That’s basically how things are going at the 92nd International Six Days Enduro (ISDE) in Brive-la-Gaillard, France, for the men and women of the U.S. ISDE team.
The week got off to a rocky start when Thad Duvall crashed out of the event in the very first special test, effectively quashing any hope the team had of repeating as FIM World Trophy winners.
But things seemed to turn around on Day Two when the U.S. Junior World Trophy team found itself the primary beneficiary of a bike problem that cost Sweden one of its riders and, thus, its chance of defending the Junior World championship won in Spain last year.
In addition, the U.S. Women’s World Trophy team moved up to second in that class after early leader Spain lost two riders to crashes.
But Day Three seemed to be another rough go for the Americans. The overall individual winner the day before (as well as of the event two years ago in Slovakia), Ryan Sipes lost much valuable time when he crashed hard in the third test. That dropped him from the day’s individual honors race, which Loic Larrieu took back to the French camp.
2017 ISDE France Day Three Results
This shot of Kailub Russell in the fourth cross test should suggest the common problem faced by nearly every rider despite cooler temperatures and even some rain reportedly on some of the course. Photo: Mark Kariya
Even Taylor Robert had a somewhat blah day, finishing with the sixth-best time of the day, though he remains second to Christophe Nambotin cumulatively, albeit with a gap that nearly doubled to 13.61 seconds.
1“It’s really hard to make up that much time back, especially when there’s like 20 guys fighting for every tenth of a second,” U.S. Team Manager Antti Kallonen observed. “You lose seven seconds for the day and you could be 10th.
“But it’s Six Days and it’s racing so we have two full days and a cross test still to go.”
A mental error when Josh Toth entered one check a few seconds early⏤thus
picking up a one-minute penalty—dropped the U.S. Junior World Trophy team from first to third behind France and Italy.
“Even without that [penalty], we weren’t as fast as France or Italy,” Kallonen admitted, “so they got us today, but we’re trying to recover and go after it again tomorrow with new course and new special tests. We hope that kind of gives us a second wind and we can get the Juniors up there again. Realistically, we have chance for second.”
2017 ISDE France Day Three Results
Brandy Richards leads Becca Sheets out of the pre-finish, next stop the U.S. pit area. Richards, Sheets and Kacy Martinez-Coy (not shown) strengthened their hold on second in the Women’s World Trophy standings. Photo: Mark Kariya
And second appears to be the likely end result for the U.S. Women’s World Trophy team. All three girls rode together all day with Brandy Richards ending up a strong third for the day behind Laia Sanz of Spain (the first day’s leader) and Australian Tayla Jones. Becca Sheets and Kacy Martinez-Coy were fourth and sixth, respectively, with Sheets hitting the deck in a transfer section on a noticeably cooler but still dusty day.
Likewise, SRT Off-road remained fourth in the Club team category with Ben Kelley, Ty Tremaine and Cody Webb each putting in another day of good rides.
2017 ISDE France Day Three Results
