On The Pegs March 2020 - Volume 5 - Issue 3 | Page 45
On The Pegs
VOL. 5 ISSUE 3 - MARCH 2020
45
FMF/KTM Factory Racing’s Kailub Russell drew first
blood in the 2020 Kenda Full Gas Sprint Enduro Series
with a decisive victory at the opening round at the
GTR Complex in Gaston, South Carolina. Nearly 500
riders competed in the racce, making it the biggest in
the history of the series.
Kailub celebrated his 30th birthday on Saturday
after topping the time charts by nearly a minute over
Coastal Racing Husqvarna’s Ricky Russell, while Team
Babbitt’s Online/Monster Energy/Kawasaki Team
Green’s Josh Strang finished third.
Kailub backed up that performance on Sunday by
winning five of six tests for the overall victory.
“I felt pretty decent and I was pretty happy with
where I was on the track and physically,” said Kailub.
“Everything was kind of flowing and I was not try-
ing overly hard to put in the times that I was putting
in. So that was a plus. We made a bunch of changes
throughout the weekend with the bike, playing
around with it. Just trying to figure out which direc-
tion to go when the track gets a certain kind of con-
dition. We went back and forth and made a bunch
of changes and everything seemed to work pretty
well all around for the most part. It was a really solid
weekend of tuning and testing and having good
results, too.”
On Saturday, Kailub won four of the five tests, finish-
ing second in test three when he dropped his front
wheel in a hole and went down. Am Pro Yamaha’s
Layne Michael took advantage of the situation to nip
Kailub by about 1.5 seconds at the finish for the test
win.
Kailub took Saturday’s win by 6.3 seconds over
Coastal Racing Husqvarna’s Ricky Russell, who went