FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Story: Noel Flatters - Editor - The Enduro Bureau
April 22, 2024

Stacked Pro Fields highlight the First Round of the SOR Enduro Racing Series

The 2024 SOR Enduro Series got underway in Brooks, AB, this weekend in a race that saw some of Canada’s top Pro riders battling to the finish with Phil Chainé (KTM Canada/Fly Racing Canada) and Shelby Turner (Enduro Engineering/GasGas/FXR) bringing home the checkers. Round 1 of the series also highlighted emerging Canadian sprint enduro talent on both the men’s and women’s sides and showed a bright future for the discipline in Canada. 

Round 1 of the series honoured the memory of Jason Slingerland. Jason was a talented young Albertan off-road and motocross athlete who passed away last fall after a tragic accident at the Wild Rose MX Fall Super Series in Calgary. Jason, along with his family, was a mainstay at races and is missed terribly by the moto community.

Key Points

1. Phillip Chainé and Jared Stock (KTM Canada/Leatt/SOR Enduro) finished an incredible 18 seconds apart in P1 and P2 after approximately 60kms of special test racing in Pro Men. Kale Cuthbertson (BFD Moto/Husqvarna Canada/Rad 2.0) celebrated his 18th birthday by picking up third in Pro Men just 2’32 behind Chainé, who had travelled from Quebec for the race.

2. Shelby Turner came back home to Alberta for a week off between GNCC rounds and managed to score the Pro Women’s victory over her Canadian ISDE World Trophy teammate Lexi Pechout (BFD Moto/Husqvarna Canada/Fox Racing Canada). This was another tight race between two powerhouse Canadian off-road pros, with Turner taking the win by just over 58 seconds after the 60kms of racing. Destiny Slingerland (HC Forest Products/EnduroTek/Team Mountains Edge)) took the final podium spot just over 6 minutes behind Turner in a very strong enduro ride for this up-and-coming motocross talent.

3. The weather had an impact on Round 1, both leading up to the race and on race day. The opening round was originally scheduled for the Pincher Creek area in Southern Alberta, but a spring blizzard buried the course that promoters Jared Stock and Courtney Schmale had built in up to two feet of snow on the Tuesday before the race. They were, with the assistance of a great group of volunteers, able to pivot to another series venue and put together a course in time for the weekend. Due to time constraints only a single test was built, with it being run forwards and backwards to get the full ten tests in on Sunday. A massive windstorm hit the course early Sunday morning, which ended up playing havoc with course markings, but racing was able to go ahead after an only 45-minute delay.
   

Pro Men - Chainé Comes West to take the Win

Phil Chainé travelled out from Quebec to take part in the opening round of his ISDE World Trophy teammate Jared Stock’s off-road racing series, and to support the development of the next generation of Canadian sprint enduro racers. The trip was clearly worth his while after he took home P1 in the Men’s Pro race by just 18 seconds over Stock.

Stock had the better of Chainé over the morning’s Enduro course, taking three out of five tests while building a slight 13 second lead. Incredibly, Chainé and Stock finished on the same HALF second on two of those tests.

New pro Kale Cuthbertson came into Round 1 looking to send a message that he was ready to show his speed as part of the new generation of Canadian off-road racers, and he succeeded. Cuthbertson finished the Enduro tests just one minute back of Stock. From the side of the course, Cuthbertson was right on the heels of Stock and Chainé for most of the morning. The time difference came down to some minor mistakes that Cuthbertson should be able to clean up as he gets more seat time this spring after a long winter. Cuthbertson was also working hard to stay ahead of his off-road legend father Shane Cuthbertson (Rad 2.0/GasGas Canada), who finished up the day in P4 for the Pro Men.

Moving into the afternoon Cross tests (run in the opposite direction of the Enduro course) Chainé started to assert himself against Stock, quickly erasing his 13-second deficit and building up a small lead. As we saw in the Enduro tests, though, Chainé and Stock were still finishing close together. In fact, the largest time gap between the two in the Cross tests was only nine seconds, with most gaps being in the five to six second range. It was an incredible show of speed and perseverance by both riders, who were clearly intent on showing that they still have the sprint enduro speed to be serious contenders for the Canadian men’s ISDE World Trophy Team next year.

Kale Cuthbertson fell slightly off the pace in the afternoon, going from a one-minute deficit to Stock in the morning’s Enduro tests, to a 1’09 defict to Chainé in the Cross tests. This was, however, a very impressive performance from Cuthbertson against two of the top sprint enduro riders in the country.

Shane Cuthbertson (Rad 2.0/GasGas Canada) and Ty Cartwright (KTM Canada/BFR Moto Crew/Nifty-5) rounded out the Top-Five in P4 and P5, respectively.

QUOTES

Phil Chainé: “[Jared Stock] won like, last, first four tests and I won the last,six. After eight tests, we were like point five [seconds apart]. The course was fun. Nice, berms, nice dirt. It's better, the dirt here in April versus when we come race in July with the hardpack. I’ll come back in, May for round two and then June for round three and try to win the championship!”

Jared Stock: “I had a good start, but kind of lost it mid-race. I was struggling little bit on a new bike. The new KTM 450 had way more power than I thought, and it was a little tough to handle in the techie woods. But all in all, I still won a few tests, and I tried to give it to feel on the last test, we, you know, I caught him and I was trying to close the gap. I think we're six seconds going into the last test. And then I shredded an outside berm and caught some ribbon in my brakes, melted the into the brake pads. I had no rear brake, so then I just kind of mailed it in. I was still doing okay on the grass track, but in the tight woods I was struggling with no rear brake. So yeah, all and I'm happy I had fun. It was cool that Phil was out here and getting some racing in and it just made it better battling each other!”

Kale Cuthbertson: “The track was wicked - wicked grass track, wicked trees, so I was happy with it. Rode good. I had a couple crashes, but I just did my best, so had a lot of fun on my birthday too, which was nice. It was pretty sweet to rip with Phil and Jared and see their speed, because that's the pinnacle of the sport in Canada. And then be able to hang on to them is a unique thing to do, and something that I want to keep striving towards. I’ll get to their speed hopefully next year, and then hopefully go to Six Days and try and represent Team Canada.”

Pro Women - The Shelby Turner & Lexi Pechout Show

The Pro Women’s field was an incredible nine-deep at Round 1 of the SOR Enduro Series, but it wasn’t surprising to see Canadian off-road superstars Shelby Turner and Lexi Pechout putting in a dominant performance over the ten tests.

Six-time Endurocross champion, and multiple ISDE Gold medal winner Turner has had a fantastic start to her 2024 season in the US, picking up her first ever GNCC win and sitting third overall in that series after five rounds. Coupled with solid NEPG and USSE performances, Turner has showed a rapid return to form after a lengthy recovery from double knee surgery and has been putting the world’s off-road racing community on notice that she’s on pace to compete for the overall podium at ISDE Spain this October. She continued to show her speed here, taking all ten test victories and putting a minute into Pechout by the end of the day.

Pechout, an off-road and motocross double threat, has been battling knee issues of her own since Round 5 of last year’s SOR series, but has been selected for this year’s Canadian ISDE World Trophy Team along with Turner and Félicia Robichaud (Motosport Saint-Césaire / Yamaha Canada / Camion Dubois). Pechout has been away from the ISDE for several years, and this was a great opportunity for her, and the fans, to see where she stacks up against Turner. Very, very well as it turns out. Although she did lose a minute to Turner over the ten tests, this really shows that Pechout’s raw speed is there. The likely difference between her and Turner was seat time and race fitness. While Turner has been down south training and racing in Arizona and the Eastern seaboard, Pechout has been suffering through a very long end to winter and a complete lack of racing to this point.

This was highlighted by the increasing margins of test victories for Turner throughout the day. While Pechout was within ten seconds or less in the morning’s Enduro tests, even finishing on the same second as Turner on test five, the gap started to grow on each of the afternoon’s Cross tests. Still, it was a great performance by both athletes, and it bodes well for Team Canada’s ISDE hopes in Spain.

Destiny Slingerland was, quietly, one of the big stories on a day that honoured her brother Jason. Slingerland is an up-and-coming motocross talent here in Canada but showed her cross-discipline skillset to place P3 behind Turner and Pechout. Her 95’37 total time put her at 93.6% of Turner’s winning time, and 94.7% of Pechout’s P2 time after 60kms of special test racing in her first event of the season. It’s going to be fun to see how Slingerland progresses in her off-road campaign this year, and to see her development as a possible ISDE World Trophy Team rider for Canada.

Former Canadian ISDE rider Kristen Broderick (Cycle Works Calgary / KTM Canada / Fox Racing Canada) took P4 on the day, with US pro Kylee Sweeten (Trials Superstore / GasGas USA / Hammer Nutrition) making the trip from Oregon to round out the top five.

QUOTES

Shelby Turner: “Jared Stock and the whole SOR Enduro Series crew did an awesome job on the track today. The conditions were actually perfect. It was a little windy for the spectators, but for the riders it was awesome. So happy to be out here and battling all day. It was it was a lot of fun. They did a really good job. And, you know, I can't believe how well the track turned out. We rode it forward and then we rode it backwards and riding it backwards definitely changed it. It was a completely different track for the, you know, the last half of the day there.”

Lexi Pechout: “What a day. Yeah, it was super fun. I'm stoked Shelby came back. We had some good battles and after they changed the direction of the loop, we had a couple tests that were pretty close. Shelby was just super-fast and walked away from me. But all in all, it was super fun to be able to race against her again, and I'm super stoked for the rest of the series, and I'm excited to see what we can do on the world stage!”

Destiny Slingerland: “It went good out there, pretty smooth everywhere and track got really rough afterwards, but it was lots of fun all the way through.”

Round 2 of the SOR Enduro Series takes place on the weekend of May 18th at the Rivieres Revival, just south of Pincher Creek, Alberta.

race results

Note: Full results available here.