_FMF Makita Suzuki Racing News
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Morganton, NC - March 22, 2010 - The skies looked ominous as the riders lined up for the start of the Steele Creek round of the 2010 Grand National Cross Country Championship, and with the fall of the starter flag, the rain began to fall too. FMF Makita Suzuki's Josh Strang didn't let the downpour faze him, however, as he launched his fuel-injected RM-Z450 off the start to take the $250 Motorcycle-USA holeshot award. Strang was under constant pressure from the second place rider, but he managed to defend his first-place position for the rest of the three-hour event.
The conditions worsened as the race progressed, with the rains turning the entire course to mud. By the sixth lap the surface was so slick that one of the larger hills on the course was almost completely blocked with stranded riders. "I turned the corner and the hill was just covered with people," commented Josh. It got to the point where race officials decided to stop the race, send the riders back to the pits, and revert the scoring back to the previous lap. According to the official scoring, Josh led the race wire to wire, and finished eleven seconds ahead of the second place finisher. "I led every lap and was comfortable with the conditions," said Strang. "I'm very happy with the way things turned out."
In the Sportsman A class, FMF Makita Suzuki's Rodney Smith battled it out in the mud aboard his all-new, fuel-injected RMX450Z. Rodney fought his way to a second-place finish.
Both Josh and Rodney are looking forward to racing their Suzukis at Round 3 of the GNCC series taking place at Big Buck in Union, South Carolina, on April 10th.
Steele Creek XC1 Pro Class Results
1. Josh Strang
2. Chrisopher Bach
3. Charles Mullins
4. Paul Whibley
5. Cory Buttrick
6. Glenn Kearney
7. Homero Diaz
8. Nathan Kanney
9. Kenneth Gilbert
10. Eric Bailey
GNCC XC1 Overall Points
1. Josh Strang 90
2. Chrisopher Bach 59
3. Charles Mullins 57
4. Cory Buttrick 49
5. Paul Whibley 47
6. Kailub Russell 46
7. Jason Thomas 40
8. Jesse Robinson 32
9. Nathan Kanney 31
10. Glenn Kearney 29
![In addition to dominating the opening round of the 2020 Kenda Full Gas Sprint Enduro series, Kailub Russell used the race to work on suspension settings. “We made a bunch of changes throughout the weekend with the bike, playing around with it,” Kailub remarked. “[We were] just trying to figure out which direction to go when the track gets a certain kind of condition. We went back and forth and made a bunch of changes, and everything seemed to work pretty well all around for the most part. It was a really solid weekend of tuning and testing, and having good results too.”](https://www.dirtrider.com/resizer/piNSWhFSPNTV3cNMZYU_p5tgqXg=/50x33/arc-anglerfish-arc2-prod-bonnier.s3.amazonaws.com/public/JZKRQR5KGNBPDCHRXALFX6SEBE.jpg)
