The Stopwatch: John Penton GNCC

After seeing his points lead shrink to only one point after Snowshoe, Paul Whibley made a statement with his win in Ohio.

The big story of the weekend at the John Penton GNCC was the heat and there was one rider who seemed to be the least affected by it and that was AmPro Yamaha’s Paul Whibley. Whibs took a wire-to-wire victory at the Penton, claiming his 8th Motosport.com Holeshot Award of the season keeping that perfect streak alive, and then pouring it on the competition riding his fastest three laps of the race in the final half of the race. Whibley’s 27:41 was the fastest lap of the day compared to his rivals by 18-seconds, but to further prove he was the fastest rider of the day Whibley’s 4th and 6th laps of the race were both faster than Rory Mead’s best lap of 27:59. Whibs heads into the Summer break with a 6-point lead over Kailub Russell (who finished 2nd on the day) and sets us up for what could be the best final stretch of the season we’ve seen in quite some time.

Andrew DeLong out-battled former teammate Jason Thomas for the XC2 Pro Lites win and both riders are now closing in on Steward Baylor for the championship.

The lap times from the XC2 Pro Lites Class don’t really tell the complete story of what an epic battle there was between Andrew DeLong and Jason Thomas for nearly the entire race. DeLong’s fastest lap came on the 2nd lap of the race after suffering yet another poor start DeLong had to put the hammer down to catch Jason Thomas who was in the lead. DeLong cut the 29-second first lap gap into 11 seconds on lap two, then was able to take the lead from Thomas on lap 3 as the duo pulled away to nearly a two-minute lead over Steward Baylor in 3rd. The race was decided on the final lap when the Husqvarna rider was able to put down his 2nd-fastest lap of the day and pull out to a comfortable 28-second lead over Thomas. Steward Baylor would ultimately finish 3rd on the day but over 3-minutes behind Thomas as he continues to struggle with his wrist injury. Baylor’s once massive points lead has shrunk to only 5-points over UK7 with Andrew DeLong another 20-points behind Thomas. Right now Andrew DeLong is the fastest man in the class but Jason Thomas is becoming more and more comfortable on his KR4 Performance KTM and with Steward Baylor getting time to heal up over the break we could see some epic battles in this class that will ultimately decide the championship.