Smage & Freixa split wins again at National MotoTrials Rounds 3 & 4 at the TTC

NATC at TTC - Marc Freixa, photo by Shan Moore

Our friend Shan Moore has the story of this weekend’s AMA/NATC USA National Championship MotoTrials Series at the TTC in his Trials & Enduro News email newsletter:

Pat Smage and Marc Freixa traded wins for the second-straight weekend during rounds three and four of the 2016 SWM US National Championship MotoTrials Series held at the Trials Training Center in Sequatchie, Tennessee.

Smage (Team RYP/Zip Express/Dunlop/Maxima/Sherco) kicked off the weekend by winning a nail-biter over Freixa on Saturday. Due to the threat of rain, the organizers set the sections on the easy side in anticipation of slippery terrain and when the rains didn’t come the result was a trial that saw the top two contenders, Smage and Freixa, finish all three laps with clean scores, although, Freixa was given a five point penalty when his minder moved a rock in section 10, which is against the rules. Smage would have won the event anyway had it not been for Freixa’s penalty, since in a tie situation the win goes to the rider who finishes the event with the fastest time, and the Sherco rider finished the 12-section, three-lap course 16 minutes quicker than Freixa.

Freixa (US Montesa/Honda) was fired up and came back with a vengeance on Sunday, taking just one point on each of his first two laps, both coming on the difficult seventh section. The former number three in the world then cleaned the entire last lap, which included a perfect ride on the difficult seventh section… Freixa’s total score of two gave him the overall win for Sunday and put him in a two-way tie with Smage in the series points standings.

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NATC at TTC - Pat Smage, photo by Shan Moore