Cycle News Staff | August 22, 2023
When hard enduro races fall on North American soil, FMF Factory KTM Racing’s Trystan Hart is the man to beat. With a dominant final-race victory over the world’s best hard enduro superstars at the Red Bull TKO Enduro, “The Robot” proved this once again. The victory was his second in a row and third in the past four years.
Trystan Hart took the TKO win and the AMA Extreme Off-Road Grand Championship.
Photography by Brandon Krause
Hart dominated the 2023 event with wins in three of the four rounds of racing on the rocky and hilly Trials Training Center’s terrain. The win also earned Hart the AMA Grand Championship for Extreme Off-Road racing to go along with the U.S. Hard Enduro Championship he had already won. Husqvarna Factory Racing-backed Billy Bolt was closest to Hart in the main event and finished 23 seconds back. Red Bull KTM Factory Racing’s Mani Lettenbichler rounded out the podium.
The TKO event is unlike any other hard enduro format, and with 2023 being the 14th year of the event, it’s proven the test of time. Multiple races throughout the weekend knock wannabe contenders out of the Pro final start list until only the cream of the crop are left to duke it out over a concentrated course of hard enduro nastiness. It’s designed to be challenging for competitors and brings maximum excitement and in-your-face action to the fans. TKO also has a path for up-and-coming racers to get to the main. If you race well enough on Saturday, you can find your way to the start of the final, but it’s a long road to get there for everyone.
Great Britain’s Billy Bolt kept Hart honest en route to second place.
While this year’s event was blessed with dry conditions and almost perfectly timed rain earlier in the week for primo dirt traction, it was hot for competitors, with temperatures hitting 90 degrees and a nice dose of southern humidity. And the rocks at the Trials Training Center are never good for traction. They are unpredictable, and the more they are ridden on, the worse they get. It’s a challenging place to race, for sure.
The Pro racing kicked off on Saturday afternoon with a Hot-Lap on the approximately two-mile “short course,” and Rockstar Husqvarna’s Ryder LeBlond set the fastest time of five minutes and 52 seconds. Hart finished second and Lettenbichler third. FactoryOne Sherco’s Cody Webb was fourth and Bolt was fifth.
The top 16 qualifying Pro riders wrapped up Saturday’s racing with a Straight Rhythm bracket-race prologue to entertain the fans and to earn some bonus cash, and Bolt topped Lettenbichler for the win, while Hart beat out Beta’s Jonny Walker to finish third.
Sunday’s format consisted of three rounds of racing for the 56 riders who earned a spot, and it started with Knockout round one on the 11-mile “long course.” Only the top 30 from this round would move on to Knockout round two on Sunday.
Hart set the fastest time with a time of 47 minutes and 17 seconds. The relatively dry conditions provided a lot more traction than normal on the rocks, and that contributed to quicker times. 2022 GNCC Champion Jordan Ashburn turned some heads with a second-place time of 48 minutes and 29 seconds on his Magna1 Husqvarna to finish second. Lettenbichler was third, RPM KTM rider Will Riordan was fourth and Webb rounded out the top five. Bolt, LeBlond, South Africa’s Matthew Green, Walker and Alfredo Gomez completed the top 10.
In the Last Chance Qualifier race on the Straight Rhythm course, the four riders who just missed out in the top 30 battled it out. Pro hillclimb racer Logan Cipala took the top spot to be the final rider to make it to the second round.
Germany’s Mani Lettenbichler completed the TKO podium.
The second-round changes format, and places the 31 riders into five groups who then race head-to-head. Four of those groups included six riders, while the fifth group had seven riders, including the LCQ winner. The riders took on a modified long loop that had increasing difficulty thrown in to narrow the field even more. With another mile of extremely difficult sections added, Knockout round two on Sunday was a beast. The top four finishers from each group earned spots in the 20-rider main event, with the winners of each group earning front-row starting positions.
Hart won group one over Bolt after a back-and-forth battle. Fourteen-time U.S. Trials Champion Pat Smage and James Flynn finished third and fourth to get into the main event.
LeBlond won group two in a tight battle with Ashburn. Colton Haaker and Gauge Logan-Key also earned tickets to the main.
Lettenbichler dominated group three. Green finished second, and Rieju’s Quinn Wentzel and Beta’s Tim Apolle finished third and fourth, respectively.
UK’s Walker won group four. Riordan finished second. Sherco rider Logan Bolopue and Beta’s Daniel Lewis took the last two spots in this group.
Webb won group five over Spain’s Gomez. Multi-time Erzbergrodeo winner David Knight finished third and Mason George qualified for his first-ever TKO. George was the only rider from the 30 who qualified into the Sunday program via the Saturday races.
Kirsten Landman won the Women’s Pro division.
The main event moved back to the short course for a 35-minute plus one-lap race, which ended up taking 44 minutes and 34 seconds for Hart to complete. Lettenbichler took the lead heading into the woods, with Hart and Bolt close behind. Hart and Bolt found a way past Lettenbichler before hitting the critical Red Bull Ravine hillclimb, which proved to be pivotal, as Bolt lost momentum at the top and Lettenbichler hit his rear wheel and flipped over backward. The German rider lost several positions when his bike tumbled down the hill. Hart made a quick break from the field and had a 12-second gap on Bolt as they started the second lap. The KTM rider methodically opened that up to as much as 45 seconds before backing off on the final lap to win by 24 seconds.
“On lap two, I threw my bike up the Kenda waterfall, and luckily no one was behind me; I just picked up the bike and went on my way, but that was a little scare,” Hart said. “From that point on, I just chilled out and nailed the hillclimb and waterfall every lap and just cruised on and maintained the gap.”
Bolt held second place throughout the race but had pressure from Walker for several laps and then Lettenbichler, who had recovered from his earlier crash.
“It’s awesome, the crowd was insane the whole way around the track, and you could barely hear the bike out there, so that was pretty sick to see so many people out here supporting the race,” Bolt said. “As far as the race went, it was a struggle, I felt the pressure from behind, just about the whole race to be honest. Jonny and Mani were on my wheel and that made it hard to concentrate and not make any mistakes. Trystan was nearly mistake-free and opened a gap early on, and I could not make it back to him.”
Bolt, Lettenbichler and Walker started the final lap separated by less than 10 seconds, but the order remained the same to the finish, with Lettenbichler taking the final podium spot.
“Billy made a small mistake at the top of the hillclimb on the first lap, and I could not avoid him, so I was back to sixth and had to work hard to move back to third, so I am really stoked on that,” Lettenbichler said. “It was crazy good, thanks to the fans cheering so loud in the woods, and I didn’t expect that. Now I am glad that we are finished so we can get out of the heat.”
Webb had a strong ride to finish fifth. LeBlond got held up on the first lap behind the carnage of the Lettenbichler tumble on the hillclimb but recovered for a sixth-place finish. Riordan was the last rider on the lead lap in seventh.
Hawaii’s Kamakana Waiwaiole was the top amateur.
Gomez finished eighth on his Rieju. Ashburn finished ninth after recovering from a first-turn crash with Green. Smage rounded out the top 10 in his first hard enduro event of the season after wrapping up the title for the U.S. Trials Championship (his 13th!).
The Women’s Pro class competed along with the top amateurs on the more difficult Saturday’s race two, and South Africa’s Kirsten Landman took the win on her KTM over American Rachel Gutish, who was racing a GasGas. Nikki Russell rounded out the podium on a Husqvarna. Landman took the AMA Grand Championship number-one plate and finished 40th overall among all the amateur riders.
TKO crowned amateur champions in several classes. Saturday included two rounds of amateur racing, with race two serving as the championship-deciding race. Hawaii’s Kamakana Waiwaiole earned the number-one spot with a winning time of 46 minutes and 44 seconds on his rented GasGas. Mason George finished just two seconds behind, and Maverik Thaxton rounded out the top three. The top 30 riders also earned the opportunity to compete with the 26 pre-qualified Pro riders, who kicked off their racing on Saturday afternoon, followed by three rounds of racing on Sunday.
Spenser Wilton, Joseph Van Roekel and Bridger Greenman made up the eMoto podium.
Other Saturday class winners among nearly 500 participants included Jared Kuehnhold (Amateur B), Leiber Adrian Ponce (Amateur C), Will Presson (Vet 40+), Travis Wilson (45+ Vet) and Coran Calvert (Youth Lites 12-15).
For the first time, the ECR eMoto class was recognized for an AMA Grand Championship, and the riders completed three rounds of racing over three days. Thirty-four electric motorcycle racers took on the course, and the top 11 earned a spot in the championship-deciding Sunday final, which was on course with the Pro riders. Seven riders completed the difficult course, with Spenser Wilton taking the ECR eMoto AMA Grand Championship number-one plate riding an Electric Motion. Joseph Van Roekel (KTM) finished second and Bridger Greenman (KTM) rounded out the podium. CN
PRO MAIN
- Trystan Hart (KTM)
- Billy Bolt (Hus)
- Manuel Lettenbichler (KTM)
- Jonny Walker (Bet)
- Cody Webb (She)
- Ryder LeBlond (Hus)
- Will Riordan (KTM)
- Alfredo Gomez (Rie)
- Jordan Ashburn (Hus)
- Pat Smage (She)
