Tag Archives: Trystan Hart

Pro riders, Rider info

Prequalified pro riders invited for 2024 Red Bull Tennessee Knockout; Lettenbichler, Hart, Roman, Webb, Young, LeBlond and Jarvis top list of riders aiming for 2024 TKO win

The fourteenth annual Red Bull Tennessee Knockout (TKO) will take place at the Trials Training Center on the weekend of August 23-25, 2024. The event will be the only FIM Hard Enduro World Championship race in North America this season and it will also serve as the seventh and final round of the AMA US Hard Enduro Championship.

One of the unique features of the TKO is that the top pro Hard Enduro racers from around the world as well as the top riders in other off-road disciplines earn an invitation that gets a free entry into pro class. The top 35 finishers from the 2023 TKO automatically make that list as well. Past TKO main event qualifiers also earn an invitation. A total of 120 riders have earned a spot on the Sunday prequalified list and 35 of those riders are expected to compete.

The 2024 TKO will attract the top international riders such as Mani Lettenbichler, Mario Roman, Wade Young and Teodor Kabakchiev from the FIM championship who will take on the top North American riders including Trystan Hart, Cody Webb, Ryder LeBlond and Will Riordan.

Mani Lettenbichler just won his fifth Romaniacs Hard Enduro to go along wins at the Erzbergrodeo and Valleys Hard Enduro. The German won the TKO back in 2019 and finished on the podium in 2021, 2022 and 2023. The Red Bull KTM rider will be looking for his second TKO win in 2024. Photography by Future7Media.

Lettenbichler has dominated the FIM Hard Enduro championship for the past two years, but Hart has managed to beat him at the last two TKO events, so we can expect an epic battle for TKO supremacy between those two.

FMF KTM’s Trystan Hart will be aiming for a third consecutive TKO win in 2024. The Canadian will have to beat a strong group of riders to get his fourth career win at the prestigious event. Photography by Sean Finley.

And don’t count out six-time TKO winner Cody Webb for the win. The FactoryONE Sherco rider is having a great season and currently leads the AMA US Hard Enduro Championship series.

Cody Webb won the TKO six times in a row from 2013 through 2018. Injuries and tough competition have kept him off the top step of the podium for a few years, but the Sherco rider is having a strong season in 2024 and leads the AMA US Hard Enduro Championship. Perhaps he can get his seventh TKO win. Photography by Ryan McCasland.

Graham Jarvis has also added his name to the list of pro riders planning to compete at the TKO in 2024.

Graham Jarvis prefers longer races than the sprint format of the TKO but the 49-year-old British rider finished fourth at the Erzbergrodeo in June and plans to be back for another shot at a TKO podium. Photography by Future7Media.

Top 120 2024 Red Bull Tennessee Knockout Prequalified Pro Riders

1. Trystan Hart
2. Manuel Lettenbichler
3. Cody Webb
4. Wade Young
5. Will Riordan
6. Mario Roman
7. Ryder LeBlond
8. Teodor Kabakchiev
9. Colton Haaker
10. Billy Bolt
11. Graham Jarvis
12. James Flynn
13. Alfredo Gomez
14. Mitch Brightmore
15. Jonny Walker
16. Matthew Green
17. Cooper Abbott
18. Logan Bolopue
19. Danny Lewis
20. Quinn Wentzel
21. Branden Petrie
22. Jordan Ashburn
23. Pat Smage
24. Tim Apolle
25. Josh Roper
26. Gauge Logan-Key
27. KAMAKANA WAIWAIOLE-KAHALEPUNA
28. Dominik Olszowy
29. David Cyprian
30. William Hoare
31. Steward Baylor
32. Josh Toth
33. Hayden Mosa
34. Craig DeLong
35. Michael Walkner
36. Liam Draper
37. Grant Baylor
38. Max Gerston
39. Mason George
40. KAWALO HUDDY
41. David Knight
42. Taddy Blazusiak
43. Francesc Moret Clota
44. Spenser Wilton
45. Marc Riba Lazaro
46. Suff Sella
47. CREED KISLING
48. Ryder Guest
49. Ricky Russell
50. Didier Goirand
51. Dan Peace
52. Adam Hartnagel
53. Anthony Johnson
54. Vaclav Nedved
55. Mark Fortner
56. Vaclav Nedved
57. Cody Barnes
58. Nick Fahringer
59. Ben Kelley
60. Jarrett Mohn
61. Ruy Barbosa
62. Jack Price
63. Ryder Lafferty
64. Radford Ghugg
65. Michael Witkowski
66. Cory Graffunder
67. Justin Hoeft
68. Angus Riordan
69. Alexander Myers
70. DYLAN SANTORO
71. Mason Semmens
72. Jackson Davis
73. Dante Oliveira
74. Josh Strang
75. Will Myers
76. Norbert Zsigovits
77. Wanja Morlinghaus
78. Jonathan Johnson
79. JARED LAMBE
80. Thorn Devlin
81. Ryan Surratt
82. Mateo Oliveira
83. Alexander Niederer
84. Varga Zsolt
85. Grant Davis
86. Austin Walton
87. Tyler Lynn
88. Jonathan Girroir
89. Daniel Blanc-Gonnet
90. Casey Satterfield
91. Chris Satterfield
92. Marc Font Torres
93. Milos Novakovic
94. DEVIN STEPHENSON
95. Jesse Ansley
96. Evan Smith
97. Cole Martinez
98. Zach Bell
99. Cole Culins
100. Cody Miller
101. Ashton Brightmore
102. Nathaniel Tasha
103. Ali Ai Hiasat
104. LOGAN CIPALA
105. Mitch Carvolth
106. Tallon LaFountaine
107. Samuel Fastle
108. George Kowalski
109. Kyle Flanigan
110. Noah Kepple
111. Ryan Sipes
112. Daryoush Ghorbani
113. Travis Teasdale
114. Keith Curtis
115. Wally Palmer
116. Chuck DeLullo
117. Alex Bedley
118. Russell Bobbitt
119. Ty Tremaine
120. Mike Brown

In addition to the top pro riders, up to five hundred amateur riders will take on the TKO course aiming for the AMA Grand Championship titles and class wins. The top thirty amateur riders will also earn the opportunity to compete with the world’s best riders during the Sunday pro racing. The ECR eMoto (electric motorcycle) class will also be back for the third year with riders and electric motorcycle manufacturers competing for an AMA Grand Championship title.

The free electric motorcycle demo rides, sponsored by Surron, will be back again in 2024 and open to anybody that wants to give one of the bikes from multiple brands, including Surron and Electric Motion a test ride.

To kick off the weekend, the top sixteen pro riders will compete in a head-to-head prologue on a man-made straight rhythm inspired enduro course in downtown Nashville on Thursday, August 22nd. The 2024 Red Bull Tennessee Knockout will again be a three-day format with a Hot-Lap on Friday to set amateur racer starting positions followed by two rounds of amateur racing on Saturday. The pro riders will kick off their weekend with a Hot-Lap on Saturday afternoon and a three round Knock Out format on Sunday. The multiple rounds of racing and course layout provide a full weekend of exciting, spectator-friendly racing.

Riders can enter the 2024 Red Bull Tennessee Knockout here. (If you are signing up via a smartphone, it will help if you close other tabs that are open in your website browser software.)

Pro riders

KTM’s Hart and Lettenbichler Confirmed for 2023 Red Bull Tennessee Knockout; Defending champion and 2020 winner looking for victory

KTM will have a powerful duo aiming for the top step of the podium at the 2023 Red Bull Tennessee Knockout. Trystan Hart (@trystanhart84), the defending TKO winner, and Mani Lettenbichler (@m_letti304), the 2020 TKO winner, have both confirmed that they will be competing at the thirteenth annual Red Bull Tennessee Knockout at the Trials Training Center on August 19-20.

Hart, who is a member of the US-based FMF KTM Factory Racing team, took his second TKO win in 2022 for his first FIM Hard Enduro World Championship win. The Canadian already won the 2023 AMA Hard Enduro Championship and finished third at the Erzbergrodeo for the second consecutive year.

FMF KTM Factory Racing will have Trystan Hart aiming for his third AMA Grand Championship number one plate at the TKO. Hart has already wrapped up the AMA Hard Enduro Championship and is second to Lettenbichler in the FIM Hard Enduro World Championship. Photo by Future7Media.

Lettenbichler races for Red Bull KTM Factory Racing, and he is the current FIM Hard Enduro champion. The German has had a great 2023 season so far taking wins at the Xross Hard Enduro Rally in Serbia and following that up with his second consecutive Erzbergrodeo win in Austria. Lettenbichler has had great success at the TKO in the past with three second place finishes and a win in 2020.

Mani Lettenbichler is arguably the best Hard Enduro racer in the world over the last couple of years. He won his second FIM Hard Enduro World Championship in 2022 and has won both championship races so far in 2023. He will be aiming for his second TKO win in 2023. Photo by Future7Media.

Hart and Lettenbichler will both be racing on the new 2024 KTM 300 XC-W, which now utilizes TBI Fuel Injection. Both riders have already won races on the new bike and hope to add a TKO win to that list.

The 2023 Red Bull Tennessee Knockout will take place at the Trials Training Center on August 18-20, 2023. There are still entries available for the Saturday amateur classes, including the ECR eMoto class. Click here to enter.

A separate link will be sent directly to the pre-qualified Amateur and Pro riders.

Results

Hart tops Webb to take 2020 Tennessee Knockout; Herrera rounds out the podium

Hart (center), Webb (left) and Herrera earned podium spots at the 2020 Kenda Tennessee Knockout. Photo: Shan Moore

RPM KTM’s Trystan Hart (@trystanhart_84) outpaced FactoryOne Sherco’s Cody Webb (@codywebb2) to take his first Kenda AMA Tennessee Knockout win. The Canadian won all four rounds of racing at the tenth annual TKO. Chile’s Benjamin Herrera Ried rounded out the podium on his Beta.

In addition to the pro racing, the Kenda Tennessee Knockout serves as the AMA Amateur Extreme Enduro Grand National Championship and nearly 300 riders entered the amateur classes to take their shot at earning a number one plate. The top thirty amateur riders also earned the chance to compete with the 26 pre-qualified pro riders.

The weekend started with a Friday prologue qualifier to set starting positions for the two Saturday races with some of the riders already earning a direct spot in the championship-deciding second race via top-ten finishes at one of the six AMA regional championship events. Danny Lewis took the win in that championship event with a time of 1:12:31. Will Riordan finished second with a time of 1:15:45 and Tyler Kincaid rounded out the podium with a time of 1:17:31.

Sunday’s format consisted of four rounds of racing for the fifty-six riders and starts with a Hot Lap on a mile-long “short course”. Hart set the fastest time with a 5:17.038 lap. SRT Offroad-backed Cory Graffunder was second with a 5:20.926 lap followed by Husqvarna backed Noah Kepple with a 5:27.148. Beta USA’s Max Gerston finished fourth in 5:27.488 and Webb rounded out the top five with a 5:27.488 time after a small crash.

Knockout round one takes place on an eighteen-mile long loop with the top twenty-five riders moving on to the next round. The riders take off in thirty-second intervals and race against the clock. Hart set the fastest time again with a time of 57:23.237. Webb came back to set the second-fastest time at 1:00:08.783. Chile’s Herrera showed his pace by setting the third-fastest time of 1:00:50.976. Gerston was fourth with a time of 1:01:33.401 and teenager Ryder LeBlond rounded out the top five in 1:02:23.687.

Knockout round two switches from a race against the clock to a head-to-head format with four groups of five riders and one group of six after a twenty-sixth rider earned a spot in the next round after out-dueling three other riders in the last chance qualifier. In this round, those five groups competed for the fifteen spots in the final by finishing in the top three in their respective groups. This was back on the eighteen-mile long course with a few more extremely challenging sections added in. Hart won group one over Keith Curtis and Will Riordan, who was one of the Saturday qualifiers. Webb won group two over Kepple and Graffunder. Herrera won group three over Beta USA’s Ronnie Commo and Sherco’s Quinn Wentzel. Gerston won group four over Jordan Ashburn and RPM KTM’s Cooper Abbott. Ashburn, who rides for the Babbitt’s Monster Energy Kawasaki GNCC team borrowed his dad’s 1998 Kawasaki KDX 200 and put it into the main event. Sherco’s Nick Fahringer won group five over LeBlond and Saturday’s Amateur class winner Danny Lewis.

Trystan Hart dominated the 2020 Kenda Tennessee Knockout on his KTM. Photo: Shan Moore

The main event moved back to the short course with a 30-minute plus one lap battle, which ended up taking Hart forty minutes and thirty-five seconds to complete eight laps. Hart jumped out to the early lead and managed to maintain it for the entire race, despite steady pressure from Webb, who is a six-time TKO winner. Webb ended up finishing just over 35 seconds behind Hart.

Cody Webb put in a strong effort to earn his seventh TKO win but could not match Hart on this day. Photo: Shan Moore

Herrera came out on top of a race-long battle with Kepple for the final podium spot. It was a strong ride for both riders. Curtis, who is a multi-time Snowmobile Hillclimb champion rounded out the top five on a Husqvarna. Kepple and Curtis were both filling in for the Husqvarna team due to Colton Haaker being out with an injured hand.

Chile’s Benjamin Herrera Ried rounded out the podium at the TKO. Photo: Shan Moore

Gerston had a tough first lap that put him well down the field but he rode a strong race to finish sixth. LeBlond who is still a teenager finished seventh on his KTM. Riordan, another teenager finished eighth and was the highest placed rider that qualified through from Saturday’s racing. Graffunder finished ninth on his Husqvarna and Fahringer rounded out the top ten on his Sherco.

Hart has had a lot of podium finishes in both EnduroCross and Extreme off-road events over the last few years and he has now beat Webb at two major events in a row. “The most stressful part of the day was having Cody right behind me for the entire main event,” Hart said. ”He is one of the best riders in the world at this and I knew that if I made any mistakes that he would take advantage.”

Webb has won the TKO six times and he was satisfied with the effort he put in. “Hats off to Trystan, he had a really good ride today and I didn’t feel like could do anything more. I wiped out hard in the Hot-Lap today, so I made my mechanic work hard today. I am happy with second because I know that I did everything I could.”

Herrera traveled from his home country of Chile in 2018 to compete in the TKO and EnduroCross events but raced the FIM Enduro World Championship series in 2019. He is back for more racing in the US in 2020. “I am really happy with my result because I raced fast enduro last year in the World Championship so this is a big change with this kind of race. I a lot the format and hard-enduro so I hope to compete more for this year and next year.”

The Women’s class had a total of 12 riders that tried to earn a spot in the main event by completing the morning race within the two and a half-hour time limit and just three of those riders moved forward to the main. The main event had a similar format to the men with a modified version of the short-course and a fifteen-minute plus one lap race.

Only three of the twelve women that entered managed to complete the tough qualification race in under two and a half hours to face off in the main event. Rachel Gutish (center) won the championship over Shelby Turner (left) and Louise Forsley. Photo: Shan Moore

Beta USA-backed Rachel Gutish (@rachel_gutfish) took her second consecutive TKO win and AMA Amateur Extreme Enduro Grand National Championship with a strong ride with a total race time of 19:41. Canadian Shelby Turner (@shelby50turner) finished second on her KTM, 48 seconds back and Louise Forsley (@louiseforsley77) rounded out the podium on her Sherco.

2020 Kenda Tennessee Knockout Main Event Results:

  1. Trystan Hart, KTM
  2. Cody Webb, Sherco
  3. Benjamin Herrera Ried, Beta
  4. Noah Kepple, Husqvarna
  5. Keith Curtis, Husqvarna
  6. Max Gerston, Beta
  7. Ryder LeBlond, KTM
  8. Will Riordan, KTM
  9. Cory Graffunder, Husqvarna
  10. Nick Fahringer, Sherco
  11. Jordan Ashburn, Kawasaki
  12. Quinn Wentzel, Sherco
  13. Ronnie Commo, Beta
  14. Cooper Abbott, KTM
  15. Danny Lewis, Husqvarna

Detailed results can be found here: https://speedhive.mylaps.com/Events/1792759

Keep an eye on the TKO blog for a video recap within a few days.

The 2020 Kenda Tennessee Knockout will also be featured on the Red Bull Signature Series on Fox.

Pro riders

RPM KTM Confirms Hart and Wilton for 2019 Kenda Tennessee Knockout

The FMF/Maxxis/RPM KTM Racing Team (@rpmracingteam) has confirmed that Trystan Hart (@trystanhart_84) and Spenser Wilton (@spenserwilton17) will be racing at the 2019 Kenda Tennessee Knockout. The two Canadian riders are among the top Extreme racers in North America and will be expected to earn top finishes at the TKO. The ninth annual TKO will take place at the Trials Training Center, in Sequatchie Tennessee on the weekend of August 16-18.

Trystan Hart was the top placed North American rider at the 2019 Erzberg Hare Scramble and is capable of contending for the TKO win. Photo: Drew Ruiz
Trystan Hart. Photo by Drew Ruiz

Hart is the 2018 AMA Western Hare Scrambles champion and has been one of the top EnduroCross riders for the past couple of years. 2017 was Hart’s best season so far as he finished second overall to Cody Webb in the AMA EnduroCross championship and earned the junior class championship for riders twenty-one and under. He started the 2018 EnduroCross season off strong, including a last-lap pass on Cody Webb at the California event to steal second place but unfortunately suffered a wrist injury that took him out of the remainder of the season. Hart was the top North American rider at the 2019 Erzberg Hare Scramble in fourteenth place so don’t be surprised to see him competing for the TKO win.

Spenser Wilton has been climbing the ranks among the top off-road racers in North America and won the WORCS Pro 2 light championship in 2018. Photo: Drew Ruiz
Spenser Wilton. photo by Drew Ruiz

Wilton won the 2018 WORCS Pro 2 lights championship on his RPM KTM. The youngster has several top finishes in major US and Canadian off-road events to his credit already and will be aiming to use the experience gained in his first TKO appearance last year to move further up in the standings.

Pro riders

Team SRT-Husqvarna riders Trystan Hart & Wally Palmer confirmed for 2018 TKO

Team SRT-Husqvarna (@husqvarnamotorcyclesusa & @srtoffroad) has confirmed that Trystan Hart (@trystanhart_84) and Wally Palmer (@wildwallypalmer) will be competing at the 2018 Kenda Tennessee Knockout this coming weekend. The Team SRT-Husqvarna riders will likely leave an impression on the fans at the 8th annual TKO, which will take place this coming weekend, August 18-19, at the Trials Training Center, in Sequatchie, Tennessee.

Trystan Hart will likely surprise some fans that are not familiar with him

Hart burst onto the North American off-road racing scene over the past couple of years with multiple wins at very diverse events. The Canadian is also the current AMA EnduroCross Junior Champion (riders 21 and under) and finished second in the 2017 championship behind Cody Webb. This will be Hart’s first attempt at the Tennessee Knockout but don’t be surprised to see him running at the front.

Wally Palmer is always a crowd favorite

Palmer has raced most of the past TKO events and is always a crowd favorite. The New Jersey native is well known for hitting difficult obstacles with aggression and throwing in some style for the fans.

Hart and Palmer join a long list of top North American and International riders that includes top American riders Cody Webb, Colton Haaker, Josh Toth, Ben Kelley, Max Gerston and Jordan Ashburn that will face off against Spain’s Mario Roman, South Africa’s Wade Young and Germany’s Manuel Lettenbichler.