Last week was action packed for North American racers. Several big names headed to RenoCross on Wednesday before heading to Waterloo for the Trek CX Cup. The Trek CX Cup held a C2 race on Friday and the first round of the World Cup on Sunday. While RenoCross was a largely North American affair, the Trek CX Cup had all of Europes top riders. Unfortunately for North American fans, Jermey Powers and Stephen Hyde were injured. Powers did not race at all, and Hyde dropped out of both Trek Cx Cup races. Meanwhile Kerry Werner continued his strong start to the season, as did many of our riders rom last weeks rankings.
Let’s see how things shake out:
Jamie DriscollDriscoll returns to the power rankings due to his performances at RenoCross and the first round of the World Cup. Driscoll powered his way to second place in Reno. He skipped Friday’s C2 race in Waterloo to rest up before Sunday’s big race. Driscoll finished 26th on Sunday and was the third highest North American rider.
Curtis WhiteAfter a pair of podiums at Nittany Cross, White was able to get a top 25 result on Sunday. Finishing right behind Kerry Werner, White looked strong all day, eventually finishing 23rd. If he can carry his form into Iowa next weekend, he may be able to crack the top 20.
Anthony ClarkAfter starting his season abroad, Clark finally returned to the US to mix it up with some of the best riders in the world. He finished 5th in Reno in what was a hard, fast race. On Sunday, Clark finished 28th, which is a great result for him.
Gage HechtDropping a few spots this week is Gage Hecht. Hecht is in Austria for the road World Championships, thus missing a few weeks of racing. We are not penalizing him for not racing. However, he moves down a few spots because of other riders strong performances.
Jack KisseberthKisseberth raced both UCI races in Waterloo. We expected him to do a bit better than 13th and 39th. While 39th in a World Cup race is nothing to scoff at, we did expect him to be in the top ten on Friday. Perhaps he can turn things around in Iowa this weekend.
Jeremy PowersWe expected great things from Powers this weekend. He was our pick to win RenoCross and place in the top twenty on Sunday. Unfortunately, Powers ended up in the ER after Rochester and was unable to recover in time for last weeks races. Whether or not he races in Iowa is still unclear. Regardless, we expect big things from him when he returns to racing.
Lance HaidetWe didn’t have much to say about Haidet apart from his surprise ride in Rochester. It appears that it wasn’t a fluke as he powered his way to victory in Reno. He ended up 37th on Sunday, which wasn’t a big surprise to us. We are expecting big things from Haidet, including an improvement in Iowa.
Tobin OrtenbladOrtenblad is the only rider on this list to race all three US races last week. He finished seventh in Reno, 20th on Friday and 30th in the World Cup on Sunday. Needless to say, he remains the third best North American rider on our list. With a bit of rest this week, it will be interesting to see how he does in Iowa. Perhaps he can crack the top twenty five, maybe even the top twenty.
Stephen HydeHere’s our final word on Hyde in lat weeks rankings: Hyde should be the top American on Sunday and we think he may break the top ten. We never thought about bad luck. Hyde dropped out of Friday’s race with asthma related issues. Then on Sunday, he went down in a crash (not his fault) and had to drop out. It was revealed this week that he cracked his sternum and is out of action for the foreseeable future. With that said, he’s still one of the best riders in North America.
Kerry WernerAfter skipping day two of Nittany cross (part of his plan), Werner looked poised to do well in Sunday’s race. He raced Friday night finishing 18th, clearly he was using that as a warm up for Sunday. After riding in the top twenty for most of the race, Werner faded to 22nd. Werner was the top North American finisher and showed why he deserves to be at the top of our rankings. As we said last week, he has a great chance of a top 20, or even 15 this weekend in Iowa.
