Results and rider comments from round five of the 2025 US Hard Enduro Series, Battle of the Goats at the Brushy Mountain Motorsports Park in North Carolina.

Round five of the ’25 Bullet  Proof Designs US Hard Enduro series, presented by IRC Tires, in North Carolina saw a makeover this year.

Fan and racer favourite sections such as Wentzel’s Waterslide, and Chicken Fight, remained but the course was changed from its historically lengthy layout to a more condensed six-mile loop.

The format consisted of two single-lap prologue qualifiers on Saturday which set row position, and then Sunday’s main race, which tasked racers with completing as many laps as they could manage in a three-hour time limit.

Friday-night rains lead into thunderstorms early Saturday morning, which made sure the course was good and muddy for qualifying. First riders on the course were the Amateurs, with Lennox Reilly taking the overall. The rains held back for the morning racing, and while the course started to tack up, mother nature made sure that the Pros had a muddy course as well, as the skies briefly opened up minutes before the start of the afternoon qualifier.

Rockstar Energy Husqvarna Factory Racing’s Ryder LeBlond was able to take the lead and the win, with FactoryONE Sherco’s Will Riordan crossing the finish less than 30 seconds behind. Redbull KTM FMF’s Trystan Hart, Rocky Mountain Yamaha’s Cody Webb, and Beta USA’s Danny Lewis, rounded out the top five.

Sunday main race

For Sunday’s main race, riders started in rows of five based on Saturday’s Prologue results. While the rains held off and racers were treated to beautiful skies and even more beautiful temperatures, sections like Joker Falls, Wentzel’s Waterslide, and Chutes and Ladders still held enough water, both standing and flowing, to make the course interesting. The story of the day was on the pair of riders who took solid leads and ran away from the rest of the pack.

After starting strong off the start line, LeBlond was clearly in his element, cleaning every obstacle and instantly able to pick the better lines. He stayed ahead of Hart for the majority of the first two laps, trading leads a few times. Hart was finally able to wait LeBlond out and make the move for the lead. 

Coming into the final lap, LeBlond was putting the pressure back on, but a crash in the final creek section took any hope of a last-minute pass. Hart was able to work up a 20-second lead across the finish line. The only other rider to complete four laps was Will Riordan, crossing the finish nearly 30 minutes later.

Results:

Say What? Pro rider interviews with Max Gerston:

“[Today’s race] started off pretty rough,” said Hart. “My mousse was a bit too stiff, so I was really struggling. I kind of wrote the race off on lap one because I thought Ryder had a huge gap and I was just messing stuff up. Then out of nowhere, I caught him at Wentzel’s Waterslide; I honestly thought he got hurt or messed something up because he was there going pretty slow. It was stressful; I definitely didn’t want to get all the way to the last lap in the lead and then lose it somehow. This is my fifth-consecutive win here. This place has always been pretty good to me – it’s where I got my first win against Cody [Webb], so the place is pretty special.”

“We both had good lines, good speed, and we pretty much gapped everyone else,” explained LeBlond of his and Hart’s three-hour battle. “It came down to me and him at the end. Going into the last lap, he got a little bit of a gap on me. For a second, I gave up. I told myself I was going to go as hard as I could until the finish and see what happens. I took some sendier lines and they worked out and I caught back up to him at the end, which was big for me – usually he pulls on me at the end and that’s where he can get me. I was able to reel him back in which I’m pretty stoked on. Good on him for staying calm the last lap; I felt like I was panicking, and I’m sure he was panicking.”

“The course was shorter, but honestly, it didn’t feel that short,” said Riordan. “Although in saying that, I think we did it quicker than we thought because it was a bit drier. We ended up going four laps. It was definitely not as slippery as it could’ve been, but I was struggling for traction a bit. The rocks were slippery, and the track got slipperier and slipperier as people carried water around it. I got third, which was good, but the top two boys worked me.

“I had one incident a lap [which slowed me down] – last lap I fell down a big rock. It’s little stuff, but it adds up. I also had a few little mechanical issues – my throttle kept getting stuck on, my bars rolled back, it was running hot, just little stuff.”

The top Amateur racers of the weekend were Tyler Labell, Geiner Cordero and Brock Harris, each completing three laps. The next USHE Premier Championship race will be the River Monster Hard Enduro at Kairos Resort in Glen Lyn, Virginia on May 10.

Full results: http://www.moto-tally.com/USHE/Results.aspx

Website: www.ushardenduro.com

Photo Credit: Calafia Concepts