For most Americans, this time of year means football, cooler temperatures, dropping leaves, hunting season, and the smell of wood smoke in the air.  But for people who ride and race dirt bikes, fall means something completely different.  It means it’s time for the International Six Days of Enduro!  Each year, the world’s fastest and most skilled dirt bike racers descend upon a location that changes each year to race for their country.  It’s basically the Olympics of dirt bike racing, with riders competing for both individual and team honors against the best of the best.

This year, the ISDE is taking place at Galicia, Spain.  The racers from the United States have been preparing for this event all year long, with qualifying, practice, and bike prep/ shipping having been done weeks and months prior.  They arrive usually 3-7 days in advance to walk all of the courses they will be racing on, to try to gain any edge they can to ride faster for their country.

Team U.S.A. sent 31 riders to Galicia this year.  Ten are members of the premier Trophy class, while the remainder are in the Club class, made up of seven 3 person teams.  I must say person because one of our Club teams is making history this year.  The Eric Cleveland Memorial Team is the first ever all female Club team.  We’ll cover the members of each of the 10 U.S. Teams over the next five days, and also try to keep you up to date on how our athletes are doing each day.

Today, let’s review our American racers in the Trophy class.

Our Four Riders for the Defending Champion U.S. Men’s Trophy team are:

Johnny Girroir, Dante Oliveira, Cody Barnes, and Josh Toth. After Day 1 of racing, the men are sitting pretty in 2nd place.  Oliveira with the fastest overall time led the way.

The Three Ladies on the also Defending Champion Women’s Trophy team are:

Brandy Richards, Ava Silvestri, and Rachel Gutish.  They jumped right out to the front today in an impressive display of speed.  They have a 1 minute 39 second lead over the Australian women going into Day 2.

The Three Young men on our Junior Trophy team are:

Mateo Oliveira, Grant Davis, and Jason Tino.  As a team they are currently in third position only about a minute and a half back.  Great first day of racing.

The top U.S. Club teams are sitting at 5th, 9th, 11th, and 16th after the first day.

Conditions were extremely wet and muddy, so the difficulty level was high for our riders, but they rode well anyway.  A great effort and result.

Here at MojoMotoSport.com, we’re paying particular attention to our NorCal friends and riders Anson “Mojo” Maloney, Anthony Ferrante, Lane Lorenzo and the Oliveira brothers Dante and Mateo.  You guys continue to amaze us and make us proud.

We’ll recap Day 2 tomorrow, and review the members of a few of the Club teams from the United States as well.  GO TEAM USA!!!!