Round 5 of the 2023 IRC Tires Endurocross Series went off in Redmond, Oregon, last night and it more than lived up to expectation. Coming out of the Rounds 3 and 4 double-header two weeks ago in Idaho, Canadian Trystan Hart (FMF KTM Factory Racing) had put a stop to what had been series leader Jonny Walker’s (Beta USA) perfect season. Hart had struggled in the first two rounds and went into Idaho in fifth-place overall, an unacceptable situation for The Robot. In Idaho, though, he won both rounds and also benefitted from Walker finding incident after incident on track and losing many valuable points. After the dust had settled Walker remained in P1 overall, with Hart and Cody Webb (FactoryOne Sherco) in a two-way second place tie just 13 points back. With only two rounds left coming into Oregon Hart summed things up for me like this - “Pretty simple from here on out. I need to be in-front of Cody (Webb) and Jonny (Walker). Not a small task, but I’m up for the challenge.”

We’re here in Redmond OR for Round 5 of the 2023 IRC Tires Endurocross Series, and it’s shaping up to be an exciting one. 2022 Series champion Jonny Walker dominated the first two rounds of the series with perfect 1–1-1 motos in each, and leaving the field questioning what they could do to reel him in. The double-header round in Idaho Falls, however, was a different story. In Idaho we saw a return to normal operations for The Robot with Hart going 1-2-1 in Round 3 and 1-2-2 in Round 4 to win both. Walker, on the other hand, struggled through both rounds, getting caught up in multiple incidents that prevented him from challenging for wins (2-4-3/P2, and 6-3-4/P4). There was no doubt that his speed was there, it just looked from trackside like he was struggling to get himself back on track all weekend.