LAST UPDATE FROM 2023 ISDE!
Hey everyone, that's a wrap on the 2023 ISDE, the 97th edition of the event. After 24 hours of travel I returned home yesterday and had a nice day of resting, and now back to work today. It’s been an epic journey, I’m relieved but also sad to have it end. This was a very challenging ISDE, and to finish is an accomplishment. I want to thank you all for supporting my race and following along, I wouldn’t be able to do this without you. I also want to thank all the Team USA volunteers that came to work at the checkpoints and tests. The level of support was top notch this year and everyone worked well together and should share the success of the best USA results ever - top to bottom. We won the World Trophy, 2nd in Junior Trophy, won Women’s Trophy, and had club teams place 1st, 2nd, and 4th.
My club team GTBN placed 2nd in club, and I can finally say I stood on the podium after narrowly missing out a few times before! My teammates rode well all week. Jaden won the C1 class and placed 3rd overall in club. Thorn placed 8th in club even with 5 minutes of time penalty. My result was nothing to write home about, I placed 18th in club and 66th overall. Considering two weeks ago I was seriously questioning if I could even race (due to my mountain bike crash and subsequent injuries) I think I should be happy I made it to the finish line. I had some serious mental and physical battles leading up to and during the race that I had to overcome. I feel I rode to my limit, but it’s still difficult to accept my limit wasn’t as high as it normally is. I finished with a silver medal, missing out on gold medal by 30 seconds! Josh Toth set a really high pace to finish on gold (within 10% of his time), and my riding wasn’t my best. However, I can take a small moral victory knowing Josh skipped a section of transfer trail on day 1 while having heat stroke, relied on IVs to stay hydrated, and ran out of gas and had to swap bikes to stay in the race – enough to deserve a DNF. These are sneaky trophy team antics Josh learned over the years that he brought down to the club level – don’t get my wrong he rode great, but there is a reason trophy is trophy and club is club.
The final motocross race was interesting this year. Normally, they divide each final race based on class (C1, C2, C3, Women, E1, etc) but this year, they ran classes combined based on overall position, so I was in the top 40 club overall moto - combined C1, C2, C3. I had a decent position going into the first corner but got squeezed off and had to stop for a downed rider. I excited the first corner way back in about 30th. The first couple laps were chaos but I made quick moves and steadily worked my way forward. Mid race I started to get arm pump and the jump landings were really bothering my wrist, so I rode it home to finish in one piece. It was my first mx race since ISDE 2 years ago, and it’s been since January since I’ve ridden an MX track, I was uncomfortable but it was still a lot of fun to moto down! I ended up placing 12th in the moto.
The Junior Trophy moto had an interesting storyline. Swede Axel Semb checked out but his teammate Albin Norbin’s motor let go on his Fantic 300. Axel and their 3rd teammate Max Ahlin who had dominated days 1 thru 5 stopped to help push Albin’s bike around the track. They gave away their big lead and finished 3rd, giving a surprise win to the French Junior team and bumped USA to 2nd. Unfortunately, the Swede’s did not understand the rules and Axel and Max should have continued with their moto and left Albin. There is a rule for if a rider DNFs the final moto, the rule states “If a rider does not cross the finish line within 5 minutes after the winner, his time will be the time of the slowest rider of his class in the heat plus 5%.” So, instead of 1 rider having a slow time, all 3 of them did. Additionally, Albin was penalized for outside assistance. This will be a painful lesson learned for them..
The combined trophy moto had a surprise holeshot from 3 peat overall scratch winner Josep Garcia on his 250f. Josep held off a trio of American racers until Dante railed the outside of a berm and went on to win the moto – little bro Mateo won the Junior moto and also ended the week top Junior rider after Sweden’s misfortunes. Dante just edged out Taylor Robert for 3rd overall on the week but Taylor can be happy retiring as the leader of this World Trophy winning team, the 3rd time he’s done so. Taylor has done a great job the last 10 years filling Kurt Caselli’s shoes as “Captain America” and his legacy will not be forgotten. Dante is in line to step up as the next American ISDE leader and hopefully we can continue to have success at this event for years to come.
Next years ISDE will be held in Silleda, Spain. It’s in the far northwest side of the country near the Atlantic coast and Northern Portuguese border. They hold Spanish National enduros and EnduroGPs nearby in Lalin, the dirt looks amazing and it should be a very good ISDE! The Spanish fans will show up in numbers to cheer on local pride Josep going after his 4th individual overall in a row. I hear rumors that 2025 will be in Portugal and the 100th edition of the race in 2026 will be in Wales – the birthplace of the ISDE. I also have heard a rumor of Australia 2025. Every year I hear many rumors of future locations and most of them aren’t true so I won’t but any stock in those locations until they’re officially announced. I very likely won’t race Spain next year, it’s quite difficult to race it year-after-year as it’s a full year commitment of all my vacation time and fun money. I’d like to do more in the future, it’s not getting easier as I get older but I feel I still have a lot left in the tank. As long as I still enjoy doing it and have the means to do so, I plan to try! ISDE is the ultimate dirtbike race.
Thanks again for following and supporting, until next time, Adios!