Halfway through it was Witkowski , Lafferty , and Snodgrass less than 30 seconds apart with Riordan dropping to fourth and Herrera rounding out the top five . As the two-lap board came out the gap would close on the front three , with Witkowski leading the point less than ten seconds back to Snodgrass with Lafferty separating the two . Before the white flag came out , Witkowski would suffer another crash along with feeling the effects from his crash at the previous round , dropping him back to third as Lafferty would take over the lead and Snodgrass would move into the runner up position . The gap between the three would stretch out to 51 seconds between Lafferty and Snodgrass , while Witkowski was another 41 seconds behind .
At the checkered flag , Ryder Lafferty would claim his first career XC2 victory with Snodgrass taking second and Witkowski taking the final podium position . Steel City Men ’ s Clinic backed Honda rider Ben Nelko would come from outside the top ten to finish fourth with Devlin rounding out the top five . Beta teammates Johnson and Smith would claim 6th and 7th with Honda teammates Barbosa and Barnes finishing 8th and 9th with Herrera rounding out the top 10 .
As the field of 125 ’ s took off for the start of the XC3 Pro class , it was Yamaha mounted Eli Childers taking
VOL . 7 ISSUE 5 - MAY 2022 // PAGE 119