Off-Road
Posted: 10/25/09
It's a genuine tradition at this point, that each year's Grand National Cross Country Series ends up in Crawfordsville, Indiana for the biggest race of the season. This past weekend it was no different, with the gnarliest, craziest course on the entire circuit saved for this final round. Beyond the course itself, The Ironman also has such a great atmosphere with a crowd several times larger than most other rounds, the brisk fall weather and the bright orange and yellow fall foliage all around. It's a great event every time, and this time it crowned a new XC1 (450) class champion - Geico Powersports/Kawasaki's Paul Whibley.
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Posted: 10/25/09
It took the entire season for it to happen, but for the 5th time in as many years, a foreign rider has won the premier XC1 class GNCC title. This time it was New Zealander Paul Whibley, who's been trying for several years now and was able to capitalize on the lack of either a Salminen or a Knight to battle with up front. Whibs was coated with spray-on string goop by his teammates after he crossed the line in 4th for the day.
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Posted: 10/25/09
It was ShockDoc/KTM's Nathan Kanney who - for the 3rd year in a row - came away with the overall win on the day. It was a wacky race for the New Yorker, but after getting stuck in the mud at least once and several other mishaps, he found himself in the unlikely position of 1st when he came across the line. "I still don't believe I won, but I'll take it!". Joining him on the podium were Suzuki teammates Josh Strang and Charlie Mullins, each of whom lead the race for several laps during it's near 3 hour duration.
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Posted: 10/25/09
The ShockDoc KTM team continued their dominant performance, putting both of their XC2 (250) riders on the top two steps. Recently crowned XC2 champ Kailub Russell (left) had to play runner-up this weekend to teammate Corey Buttrick, who along with Monster/Andrews Yamaha's Jason Thomas put on a riding clinic up front. At one point early in the race, and despite starting 90 seconds behind them, the top 4 XC2 guys were running around at the front of the entire field - in the top 4 positions overall. It's not the first time it's happened this year, and eventually things sorted themselves out with the XC1 guys outlasting them up front, but it's impressive nonetheless. These three guys are the cream of the up-and-coming crop, and the future looks bright.
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Posted: 10/25/09
It was the #5 Suzuki RMZ450 of Charlie Mullins who ran off with the holeshot for the XC1 class start. He was followed closely by Jimmy Jarrett (6), Thad Duvall (7) and Barry Hawk (hidden). Mullins lead for several laps before getting stuck in a muddy section.
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Posted: 10/25/09
Here's Kailub Russell at the front of the XC2's with the other two podium finishers - Buttrick (12) and Thomas (15) - in hot pursuit.
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Posted: 10/25/09
The two Suzuki teammates - Australian Josh Strang and Ohioan Charlie Mullins ran 1-2 early on, this shot taken toward the end of lap 1. These two swapped the lead a few times before Nathan Kanney stepped up and took advantage of a couple of their errors to take the win.
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Posted: 10/25/09
There were an infinite number of ways to cross this creek - some slow and careful, some fast and crazy. Corey Buttrick demonstrates the fast and crazy way - he had to hit a root between two very closely spaced trees to launch it, and was the first rider to do it all day.
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Posted: 10/25/09
Charlie Mullins had also to battle with Geico Kawasaki mounted Jimmy Jarrett in the early going, successfully holding him off before Jarrett faded a bit to 5th due at least in part to a still sore wrist injury that he's been recovering from.
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Posted: 10/25/09
Suzuki's Josh Strang was impressive all day, as well as the entire season. Strang finished up 2nd for the series, and theoretically had a chance to win the title if Whibley had some major bad luck (he'd had to have finished 14th or worse with a win by Strang). Both of these two will be back for more fun next season.
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Posted: 10/25/09
He's now pretty much known as the King of the Ironman since he's won it the last three years in a row. Kanney's from New York state, so the conditions are probably similar, but so are many of the other rounds. When asked what it was about this race that made him so good here and he didn't really have an answer.
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Posted: 10/25/09
The lone factory Husqvarna pilot on hand was Australian Glenn Kearney. He ran toward the front for a while and is shown here negotiating one of the medium-difficulty gnarly uphills, Kearney ultimately ended up 10th.
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Posted: 10/25/09
He may be the 2009 XC2 Champ and son of GNCC Trail Boss/off road racing legend Jeff Russell, but Kailub's not above making a few mistakes. He went down hard a couple of times, getting stuck and also landing face first in a cold creek which left him shivering uncontrollably on the podium, but the kid's got what it takes. He'll be returning next year to run his #1 plate in the XC2 class, again on the factory KTM.
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Posted: 10/25/09
No, not that Jason Thomas. This one's from England and was imported by Fred Andrews to race the XC2 class. The young Brit was doing great overseas when Fred pulled him over, and this season he's been consistently on the podium and even pulled down a couple of wins. He'll be back next year too, probably in the XC2's again.
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Posted: 10/25/09
Caselli came back to the GNCC series (which hasn't been kind to him this year) after finishing impressively as top American at last week's ISDE in Portugal. It's amazing that a guy with Caselli's talent just can't seem to get it together in this series, but man is he fun to watch. He absolutely attacks the course, jumping stuff unnecessarily and looking for harder lines presumably just because it's fun. It's definitely fun to watch, that much is for sure...
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Posted: 10/25/09
Josh Strang was plucked from the Australian National offroad series in 2007 after winning the title in 2006. He came up and raced the A class for a season before the factory Suzuki team stuck him in the premier class, where he's been improving ever since. He looks to be a genuine threat for the title next year (as he was this year, finishing 2nd in the series), and is already committed to return.
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