U.S. World Trophy Team ends Day One in fourth at ISDE  

Story and photos by Steve Berkner

Day-one of the International Six Days Enduro in Kotka-Hamina, Finland, was a bittersweet day for the 28-rider U.S. National ISDE Team as the US World Trophy Team posted a score good enough for fourth place overall while the U.S. Junior Team finished the day in seventh place. The U.S. Women’s World Cup Team ended the day in fifth overall and the best U.S. three-rider club team finished in 17th place.

“From what we could tell leading up to the (event) Day-one was going to be a tough day with plenty of technical trails and a real tight time schedule," said U.S. National Team Manager Bruce Wakeley. "Once it started to rain overnight that became an understatement. From what I hear there was a lot of carnage out there with a lot of mud holes with slippery roots and rocks everywhere.

“A lot of our seasoned riders have rated this as one of our toughest days ever. Tomorrow will be a basic repeat of today so we need to prepare for that. This looks like it’s going to be a very tough event as they really pounding it to them all day.

Despite the conditions, Wakeley said there were bright spots, with the Trophy Team finishing fourth and Caselli winning the E2 class and coming in third overall.

“Wow, what a day," Caselli said. "That was definitely my toughest day at any Six Days I’ve ever ridden. With the rain that fell, the forest areas where really muddy and that with the times allowed didn’t give much time at the checks, you had to be on it all day. I can understand how the Finns have such great riders.

“I myself had a pretty good day," he continued. "I had some good tests and some bad tests, but the important thing is we made it through the day with our whole team intact. A lot of Six Days we lose somebody on the first day and that makes it hard as you need at least five riders with good scores to be competitive."

Caselli said many riders stood out in the tough conditions.

“My hats off to all our guys but especially to Colton (Udall)," Caselli said. "He rode about 80 miles today with only one foot peg until he was able to get a replacement one and that says something for U.S. as a team. We won’t be using his score today but because he didn’t give up, we can probably use his score tomorrow.

“Day-two is the same as Day-one so were going back out tonight and walk some of the tests again and see if we can take back some of that time and start moving up.”

The US Trophy team is 2 minutes and 8 seconds behind third place finishing Australia. Finland and Spain are in first and second place, respectively, with times of nearly 10 minutes and 4 minutes 18 seconds ahead of the Americans.

The four-rider U.S. Junior Team struggled to put together three solid scores for the day, most notably when Ian Blythe was pulled over for speeding and lost trail points while getting a ticket. Blythe said,

“Today was a real bummer for me," Blythe said. "I had a pretty good day going with my test times improving as they day went on. Then I got caught in a speed trap and I lost 20 minutes getting a ticket.

“I probably made a bad decision from there as I tried to make up some of that time and I crashed a bunch of times," he continued. "I ended up breaking my clutch lever and bent my shift shaft pretty bad. Since we weren’t going to us my score I used some extra time at the end of the day to do some extra repairs.”

Three U.S. riders houred out and re-impounded, including U.S. Women’s rider Kerrie Swartz, Dennis Decker and JD Friebel, where all three of them are now ineligible for any medal but their scores can help out their respective teams.

U.S. Women’s rider Nicole Bradford retired with a dislocated shoulder. That along with Swartz’s houring out and re-impounding all but eliminates them from a podium finish.

Source: http://www.americanmotorcyclist.com/news/racingnews/11-08-09/U_S_World_Trophy_Team_ends_Day_One_in_fourth_at_ISDE.aspx