On The Pegs June 2020 - Volume 5 - Issue 6 | Page 82

On The Pegs 82
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RUSSELL V
Having left his camelback at home, Kailub Russell suffered f
GNCC, allowing Ricky Russell and Josh Strang to move into
spite efforts from his team to throw water on Kailub too kee
came together, sending Ricky over the bars and puncturing
KAILUB’S TAKE
It was a tough day. I led pretty much the whole first five laps, but I got held up
just a little bit behind some lappers, and Ricky and Josh sucked right up to me
going into the last lap. Ricky was riding really good. I ran into some hydration
issues. I left my water pack at the house and didn’t have it. I thought I would be
okay because we had a pretty good strategy with what we were going to take
during the race. We had a couple issues with it throughout the last three laps,
though. My straw was falling out of the bottle before I was getting any water.
So I didn’t really get any liquids in me the last hour of the race and I suffered
from it pretty hard the last lap. Ricky was riding good. It was definitely his race
to win today. I kind of got a little bit lucky. He kamikaze’d himself there about
the three or four mile marker. He tried a crazy line there. When you’re pushing
late in the race the last lap, the heat gets to you. Your judgement is a little bit off.
It wasn’t anything. We were racing hard and not giving up an inch, but it was a
completely avoidable crash. I don’t understand what happened, what he was
thinking. It was one of those things. When we touched, I knew he was crashing,
just the way it played out in the woods. I feel bad that he went down that hard. It
was a big hit that he took because we were going fast. It was a fast straightaway
in the woods. These three lines funneled into one and I had the premier line and
was out front. I had my bike up in front of him. I really didn’t even see him. It kind
of came out of nowhere. We just barely touched and he kind of pin-balled off
of me and went in the opposite direction. Tough break for him, and I hope he’s
okay. I’m glad to have some competition and step it up. It was a tough day. n