On The Pegs February 2020 - Volume 5 - Issue 2 | Page 49

On The Pegs
VOL. 5 ISSUE 2 - FEBRUARY 2020
49
The opening round of the 2020 Kenda AMA
National Enduro Series was a thriller, with FMF/
KTM Factory Racing’s Ben Kelley squeezing
out the victory over FactoryONE Sherco team-
mates and brothers, Steward and Grant Baylor.
All three came into the event with the odds
somewhat against them. Ben Kelley missed
the complete series last year when KTM and
Husqvarna teams elected to sit out the na-
tional enduro series, so it had been over a year
since the Connecticut rider had ridden tight
enduro trail. Meanwhile, the Baylor brothers
switched to Sherco during the off-season and
didn’t get their race bikes until two days be-
fore the race and only had one day of seat time
on the 450 SEF’s before the race. However, the
three riders split the six tests among them-
selves, with Kelley taking three test wins, while
Steward won two and Grant won one.
Kelley took the early lead after winning the
opening two tests. In test five, however, both
Baylors finished ahead of Kelley, leaving Stew-
ard leading the race by two seconds over Kel-
ley going into the final test.
Kelley turned in his best test of the day in the
10-mile final test, beating Steward by 11 sec-
onds and taking the overall win by a little over
nine seconds, with Grant rounding out the
podium in third.
Thad Duvall turned in a steady ride for
fourth, while his Rockstar Energy Husqvarna
teammate Trevor Bollinger rounded out the
top five, despite having very little enduro ex-
perience.