finally. been biting nails for ......many years, since I was a kid (in age anyway).....so many great USA offroad guys have entered this arena and we have come up short so many times....I need to think that the later efforts of Kurt Caselli put us more into the Euro frame of mind/style to get us here. Fantastic job all. because Im such an old fart-- my #1 smile is for Fred Hoess and efforts of some of our esteemed NE Husky crew for his OA of the vintage class on the 86 WR250 (Joe, Norm and the cast of many).
Especially in the first year of the new rules where a lot of luck has to fall your way since one rider retire is so harsh on the time..when's it's your time it's your time and finally you guys took the top step. What l'd love to see is for the ISDE to get out of Europe more often...2017 in France, com'on, how about hosting in Canada, Australia, GB etc etc.
I like to think having Taylor racing WEC this year really helped.... Just think if Ryan was there too.... I think that the rise of Sprint Enduros has us on similar racing as what we do over there....
another key to the puzzle is having the Fin Annti Kallonen involved. The Finnish Enduro "way" has shown to work many times over. Our team has always had world class guys on it, we just didnt have the team get togethers and training like we do now. (Like the Champ teams seem to always have)
Many factors in play here.... I'm going to give credit first to Jason Hooper and his Full Gas Sprint Enduro Series. This guy is the unsung hero of this saga. Three of the World Trophy riders race this series that is all about Euro style special test riding. All the Junior Trophy riders and many of the club guys race it too. US riders are really understanding how to drop the hammer out of the start box in a special test now and right from the first test too! Second to Taylor Robert's season racing EWC with KTM Farioli. He had a tough year with some success at the end of it, but all those mud races in what should have been dry and dusty venues had him perfectly tuned for the everything from dry and loose silt, to the super slippery mud of Spain this year. Job well done! Third to the rest of the WTT riders, especially Layne Michael who stepped in at the stroke of midnight, without all the prep the rest of the team got. Not any rider can do this, as last minute substitutes have struggled in the past. Kaliub and Thad are now seasoned ISDE riders who have expanded their game to work well in any format or terrain. Kaliub also backed it down a notch, to do what was needed to get it done. I believe last year he got into a personal duel with Ryan Sipes for the overall and rode way over his head and got injured. This and Thad's DNF knocked us out of contention. He could have easily fell into this again with Taylor Robert, but he didn't. I'm not sure if it was a new level of personal maturity, pressure from Antti or both? Fourth to Team Manager Antti Kallonen, who has brought maybe not a new level of professionalism to the job, as others before like Drew Smith have been quite professional, but a new level of cohesiveness and authority. Antti is known for ruling with an iron hand.... ask David Pearson about his Antti mandated weight reduction program! You don't have to ride a KTM or Husky to be on Team USA, but you may at some point in your career and Antti will be your ultimate boss.... he commands respect. Lastly to the legacy of Rich and Kurt Caselli... In the late 1990's and early 2000's the whole Team USA effort suffered from a lack of inertia, as Factory riders stayed away. The 2003 GNCC ISDE Dream Team tried to inject something back into the effort, but failed miserably that year in the sands of Brazil and it went back to status quo. Rich and Kurt caught the ISDE bug and started the long road to a Team USA victory. The first victory came fairly quickly, with a Junior Trophy victory in New Zealand in 2006. A long 10 years to get that World Trophy win though and sadly neither would live to see it. One thing that I find a little interesting, was that Rich didn't believe that we could win with east coast riders and that it would take fast west coast riders to do it. Colton Udall and Gary Sutherlin are 2 west coast fast guys, who everyone thought were going to kill it at the ISDE and just couldn't adjust to the format. Team USA won this World Trophy with 3 east coast riders and 1 west coast rider... The key wasn't fast west coast riders, east coast technical riders or guys with a MX background, but well rounded riders who spent time working on learning the ISDE format and how to ride it to maximum effect. Congratulations to team USA!
Some good articles here. USA USA USA! http://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/739653-cycle-news-2016-issue-41-october-18 http://www.dirtrider.com/international-six-days-enduro
I cant imagine getting the call basically the day before you have to go to get all your gear together and packed and your butt on a plane.... crazy great ride.... It seems like we always end up sending East Coast guys to the desert type events and west coast guys to the sloppy mudders.... It takes not just "Fast" guys butt guys that can haul the mail and take care of your equipment... Its a great year I hope we can back it up next year..... be sweet if they would give one to D37 and just run them around Lucerne Valley..... LOL
Norm spot on. Good enough to publish for certain Well thought out and should be used tonight in the debate.
