ISDE – Day 5 Report by Mandi Mastin

The final day of trail sections are done. The only part left is Day 6, the final motocross, the easy part.

As the organizers promised, Day 5 was the toughest day of the week. The first section had two special tests and then headed to check 1 with mostly road. After that section, it was rough, rocky, gnarly trail all day. The downhills were really steep, with silty deep ruts. The rocky sections contained much more technical bigger rocks than what we have rode most of the week. The mileage was a bit shorter today, but the speed was slower due to the more technical trails.

My day started out okay, but went down hill after the first check. In the second section, I got lost two times. During the second loop, I had a high speed get off and got pretty banged up. So after that, I pretty much just rode the rest of the day to finish, without crashing and getting really hurt. Since I had two bad days at the beginning of the race, a couple more route points today wasn’t going to hurt my score. I just wanted to finish in one piece. The positive part of the day was that we didn’t have to go up the dreaded uphill!! So that made me happy!!

As for the USA Women’s Team, Nicole & Maria both had a great day today. Maria had a pretty bad get off early this morning, but she plugged away and ended the day with a good score. Nicole days was going really good up until the the section about 10 miles from the finish. She crashed and tweaked her radiator. Luckily, she made it back to the parc, with the bike still running, but the radiator was empty. She got the radiator fixed tonight, didn’t lose any route points and is ready for the final moto tomorrow.

The USA Women’s Team is still in 2nd and our World Trophy team is now in 4th behind Finland only down by seconds. So tomorrow’s motocross will play a big part in determining what place the World Trophy Team will end up in.

Thanks for everyone’s support!! Go Team USA!!

Mandi Mastin