Kailub Russell was looking for his fourth straight 2014 Grand National Cross Country series win until he crashed after leading for three laps in Round 5 at the Dunlop Limestone 100 in Springville, IN.
Russell, who experienced a first turn pile up in Round 1 that kept him from winning the season opener, managed to fight his way back and take third place but he lost the points lead to his Factory FMF/KTM teammate Charlie Mullins.
Despite the severity of the crash which sent Russell end-over-end, he immediately got back on his bike and continued the race. He lost time when he had to stop in the pits to replace a ruined piece of his bike's exhaust system.
"I don't even know what happened really, I grabbed the front brake and my front end just went sideways. I was wide open out of the straightaway and I went flipping several times," Russell said.
Photos by Ken Hill
After the crash, Mullins grabbed the lead on Lap 4 and Thad Duvall took second. Russell slowly crept up on Duvall and caught up to him on the last lap. Russell, who won the $150 Fastest Lap Award again, missed the runner-up spot by only 00.375 seconds. Russell rode with the white number plate background (denoting points leader) for the first time this season on Sunday so he'll have to grab it back from Mullins who rode with it the previous three rounds and gets it for Round 6.
Russell, a MotoSport-sponsored rider, led Mullins by two points in the overall National Championship Standings heading into the race and is now seven points behind. The GNCC takes two weeks off before resuming with Round 6 on May 10-11 at Loretta Lynn's Ranch in Hurricane Mills, TN.
GNCC Round 5 XC1 Pro Results
- Charlie Mullins
- Thad DuVall
- Kailub Russell - MotoSport rider
- Paul Whibley
- Steward Baylor
- Takeshi Koikeda
- Jordan Ashburn
- Josh Strang
- Chris Bach
- Jason Thomas
Overall National Championship Standings
- Charlie Mullins (125)
- Kailub Russell (118) - MotoSport rider
- Josh Strang (90)
- Jordan Ashburn (77)
- Paul Whibley (75)
- Steward Baylor (71)
- Grant Baylor (67)
- Ricky Russell (62)
- Thad DuVall (61)
- Andrew Delong (55)
