Steward Baylor Jr Makes it 3 Wins in a row as Grant Baylor Wins the Championship

The 2023 Magna 1 AMA National Enduro Series Penultimate round took place at the famous Cumberland Covered Bridge in Matthews, IN for the 70th Edition of the Muddobbers National Enduro. Conditions were at an all-time high. Fall colors starting to show with sunshine, 80 degrees, and perfect soil lead to close racing action. Steward Baylor Jr was able to win the race, and brother Grant Baylor secured his second in a row Overall Championship in the National Enduros.

Rocky Mountain ATV/MC Tely Energy KTM’s Steward Baylor Jr. was able to put in a second half of the day charge to take a commanding win over Enduro Engineering GasGas rider Josh Toth in Second and Monster Energy Babbitts Kawasaki’s Grant Baylor in third. Steward had a pair of second place test times with a test win in Test 2 that had him with a 1 second lead over Josh Toth at the halfway point. Steward made some set-up changes to the bike at the Gas Available to more of a GNCC style set up. He was able to dominate the final 3 tests of the day to amount up to a 53 second win.

Bouncing back from racing under the weather at the previous round of the series was Josh Toth. Toth said he wanted to come out swinging in Indiana after a poor performance in Ohio. Toth came out swinging by winning the first test. With roughly 4 miles to go in Test 2, Toth ripped the shifter off the bike. Toth said “we got into a tighter spot in the test and I kind of pin balled off a couple of trees and clipped the shifter and broke it off, so I was stuck in 3rd gear.” Toth was able to carry on that test to 2nd overall. After also winning Test 3, Toth was hunting for a win but fell short in the second half of the day to the charging Baylor.

Grant Baylor needed to beat Josh Toth or at least finish 1 place behind him in order to wrap up the 2023 Championship 1 round early. Grant said he came into the race ready to go for the win. After a big crash early into Test 1 and another crash in test 2. He knew Steward and Toth were flying and he needed to start thinking about the championship. Grant put in a solid ride and was able to finish just 1 place behind Josh Toth in 3rd to wrap up what is Grants second overall championship in a row and his 3rd in 4 years. That also makes it 7 championships in a row for the Baylor Brothers.

Finishing 4th Overall was AM-Pro Yamaha rider Ricky Russell. A season best 5th Overall was Rockstar Energy Factory Husqvarna rider Trevor Bollinger.

6th Overall and 1st in NE Pro 2 was AM-Pro Yamaha rider Liam Draper. Draper became the first NE Pro 2 rider to win 2 races in a row. Winning 3 of the 6 tests of the day with second place class times for the other 3 put Draper just 13 seconds ahead of Grant Davis. Liam said “my main goal coming into the race was to finally hold the 21A plate for two races in a row since no one has been able to do that all year. I am happy I was able to win today and do that.”

Finishing on the Podium for the second time this season in the NE Pro 2 class and 8th overall is Trail Jester KTM rider Grant Davis. Davis won 2 tests on the day.

9th overall was Rockstar Energy Factory Husqvarna rider Craig Delong. 10th overall was Coastal GasGas rider Ryder Lafferty.

3rd in NE Pro 2 and 11th overall was Thorn Devlin. This is the first time all season both NE Pro 2 Championship contenders finished on the podium together with Liam in first and Thorn in 3rd. Thorn Said “I thought I was riding great until I looked at the test times and saw I was getting smoked by Liam and Grant. I just didn’t have anything for them today.”

Mackenzie Tricker of the Enduro Engineering GasGas team won her 5th race of the season that was enough to seal the deal on her 5th Womens Elite Championship in a row. “I love this race; I have won it 5 times in a row now. I really like racing here and have always done well here.” Mackenzie won 4 of their 5 tests on the day.

OverandOut GasGas rider Rachel Gutish finished second in the Womens Elite class at what would be considered a home race. Living just a couple of hours from Matthews, IN Rachel said “I have raced here a lot even when it wasn’t part of the National Series. I really like racing here.”

Third on the day in the Womens Elite Class was Trail Jester KTM rider Korie Steede after missing the previous 2 rounds from injury.

Top AA rider for the day was Jhak Walker on a GasGas.

The NEPG tried a slightly modified format in partnership with the Muddobbers Enduro Club. Similar to a golf outing shotgun start where riders started on different Tests. The A/AA/Pro/Womens Elite classes were 5 on a row on the South 3 test of the race while the B/C/Womens Am/Enduro Futures/60+/65+/A 55+/Sportsman classes started on the North 3 tests of the race with 5 per row. After 3 sections both groups came back to staging for the gas available and raced the opposite 3 tests after that.

Story by Logan Densmore

Photos by Mack Faint