SOCIETY HILL, S.C. – FMF KTM Factory Racing’s Kailub Russell battled his way through some last-lap adversity on Sunday to salvage a hard-fought second-place finish at Round 5 of the 2020 AMA Grand National Cross Country (GNCC) Series in Society Hill, South Carolina. With four victories behind him in the series, the seven-time GNCC Champion maintains a healthy lead in the XC1 Open Pro Championship. Additionally, Trail Jesters KTM Racing Team’s Jonathan Girroir reclaimed the points lead in the XC2 250 Pro class with his second victory of the season.

XC1 Open Pro
Russell powered his KTM 350 XC-F off the line to capture the holeshot and early lead as he held off a hard-charging group of riders through the first hour of racing. On lap three, Russell came in for a planned pit stop, which allowed the second-place rider of Josh Strang to inherit the lead since he didn’t pit on the same lap. As a result, Russell found himself about 21 seconds behind the leader on lap four but he was able to make a charge and reel him in by lap five and it wasn’t long before he was back out front. Russell stopped again for a quick splash of gas and Strang was able to reclaim the lead as the two-lap card came out. Heading into the final lap, Russell sat 13-seconds back in the number two spot where he pre-calculated a last-lap pass about a mile from the finish line. However, before he was able to make a move, Russell ended up losing his front-end in a berm and went over the bars wedging himself between a fence and post, with his bike stuck hanging on the fence. The FMF KTM crew was able to help untangle him and his bike from the fence and Russell nursed his way to the checkers with his first runner-up finish of the season at Round 5.

Kailub Russell: “Josh [Strang] was riding really good on the whole track today and I couldn’t really make up a lot of time on him. On the last lap, I did have a spot picked out that I had made a pass the lap before and I was trying to stay on him so when we got there I would make the pass and after that there were no woods, just fields, so I would try to hold him off. I was pushing hard and we came out of the woods and turned left on a road at the bottom and I got in the fluff on the berm and my bars knifed. I endo’ed over the bars and there was a fence on my right-hand side so I went into this six-foot fence and my bike almost flipped over it. I hit it so hard that my body was wedged between the fence post and my bike was on my head spinning, it was probably the scariest crash I’ve ever had.”