Mud Is the Best Vol.5: Six in a Row on Ohio Clay — and Still Missing from the World Standings

August 10, Coal Hollow Raceway in Wellsville, Ohio. Trystan Hart came home in 3:40:47 and sealed his sixth straight AMA National Hard Enduro Championship in the Pro class — with one round still to run. Six wins from seven rounds; that's enough numbers for now. Cody Webb was second at +5:33, Ryder LeBlond third at +7:32, Branden Petrie fourth still inside twelve minutes, and Kawelo Huddy fifth already half an hour back. The course was two laps of 13.5 miles, with a five-hour limit for Pro and A riders. Rain on Saturday morning brought that Ohio clay back to life. Sunday stayed dry, but once that dirt drinks, it doesn't just dry back out. Hart had topped Saturday's prologue too, then moved to the front within the opening hour on Sunday and stayed there, aboard a KTM 300 XC. Webb, meanwhile, was reportedly nursing a machine problem and stopping to top up coolant — and still dragged himself to within five and a half minutes. That man does not break.

The interesting part was what Hart said himself: leading early wasn't necessarily the smart place to be, because the lines were still forming, so he was happy enough sitting second at that stage. And in fact the second lap ran roughly an hour quicker. That's the thing about hard enduro — the surface finishes building itself while you ride it. A rock face that only slides can become a climbable hill thirty minutes later, after ten riders have failed on it and packed it down. This next bit is my own read, but the strong guys in this sport aren't just the fittest or the most technical. They're the ones who can see what the ground under them is going to be a few minutes from now. Hart called this course one of the five hardest in the world. Big Waterfall, 12 Gauge Hill, 20 Gauge Hill, Full Metal Jacket. Just reading the section names gets you muddy. I race club events at weekends myself, so I can say this from the seat: run the same section in the morning and in the afternoon and it's a different sport. A wall nobody could climb at ten o'clock has a queue on it by two. And the rock garden you rolled through at breakfast is dug out and bottomless by lunch. That five-hour limit exists, I reckon, precisely to swallow all of that change.

Now here's what I actually wanted to write about. That same Trystan Hart lined up on June 21 at Silver Kings in Kellogg, Idaho — round three of the FIM Hard Enduro World Championship — and finished second. Mitch Brightmore won it, with Hart 5:55 back and Manuel Lettenbichler third. But look at the world standings after that round: Lettenbichler 88 points, Brightmore 75, Teodor Kabakchiev 68, Ashton Brightmore 49, Mario Roman 48. No Hart. A guy who stood on a world championship podium doesn't appear in that series' table at all. My reading is simple: he isn't chasing all eight rounds. The American championship and the world championship are the same sport standing as two separate mountains. Hart is Canadian, by the way. A Canadian takes the American series six years running, stands on the podium at the world rounds he does enter, and still doesn't make the season table. That simply doesn't happen in road racing.

Some people will call that unhealthy — what kind of sport can't settle on one world's best? I don't see it that way. In hard enduro the venue is part of the competition, and Ohio clay, Idaho rock and Swedish forest ask for completely different things. Only a handful of riders can do the whole circuit, and there are guys scattered around the world who are untouchable on their own local mountain. That scatter is exactly this sport's strength. And right on cue, the Swedish round I previewed last time — Forza Orza — is running at Orsa Grönklitt from August 20 to 22, the championship's first Nordic date. Italy's Abestone follows on September 4–6. On the American side, the Red Bull Tennessee Knockout closes the season on August 28–30. The title is already settled, and nobody is going to coast through that one anyway — that's the character of this sport. Nothing to do but watch both mountains. Mud is still the best thing there is.