[American Motorcyclist Association] - U.S. team in second after day 1 of 2014 ISDE

[Ninjette Newsbot]

Story and photos by Steve Berkner

At the end of day 1 of the Argentina International Six Days Enduro, the U.S. World Trophy Team found itself in second place behind perennial ISDE powerhouse France. The U.S. team trailed the French team by 1 minute, 20 seconds. Australia was in third place at 3 minutes, 47 seconds behind the United States, while Spain was in fourth place more than 7 minutes back.

The U.S. World Trophy Team’s day 1 second-place effort came at the cost of losing one of their six riders as Zach Osborne’s motorcycle had engine trouble.

U.S. Team Manager Antti Kallonen explained: “Zach had some electrical problems in the second test and by the time we got him going he had lost a lot of time. We thought we could get him through the day and back into impound and fix it right, but the bike quit again on the next transfer section and by then it was too late.”

The rest of the 31-rider U.S. team did very well, with the U.S. Junior Trophy team finishing the day in fourth place, just 1 minute, 37 seconds out of third place behind Australia France and Sweden.

The U.S. Women’s team finished the day in second place behind Australia and ahead of Canada, while the United States had four of its three-rider club teams sweeping the top four places, a first in U.S. Six Days history. Those U.S. club teams are the Wellard, Beta USA, GoFasters.com and Missouri Mudders teams. They finished in that order.

Kallonen added: “Of course, we still have five days to go so anything can happen. Our biggest concern is now we have no more throw-away scores for our World Trophy Team, so we are really going to have to concentrate and not make any mistakes or lose another rider as France still has all six of their riders.”

Australia lost one rider for the day as well.

The top American rider for the day was U.S. World Trophy Team rider Taylor Robert who finished fourth overall.

“With Zach out for the rest of the week, the rest of us are just going to have to stay focused," Robert said. "We all made some mistakes out there, and at the end of the day we went out and walked some of the tests we had trouble in.”

Day 2 of the ISDE uses the identical course as day 1.

Joining Robert on the U.S. World Trophy Team are Osborne, Kailub Russell, Mike Brown, Charlie Mullins and Thad Duval.

Along with losing Osborne, U.S. club rider Michael Pillar’s motorcycle failed to finish the day on time when it experienced ignition problems.

U.S. Junior Team riders Justin Jones (left) and Steward Baylor wait their turn to leave the start on day 1.

U.S. World Trophy Team rider Taylor Robert finished day 1 as top American where he placed fourth place for the day.

U.S. club rider Travis Coy rides a special test.

U.S. World Trophy Team rider Mike Brown pushes his motorcycle to the morning work on day 1.

U.S. Wellard Team rider Gary Sutherlin.

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