TAFT, Calif. – The FMF KTM Factory Racing Team extended its championship-winning success to the west coast on Sunday as team rider Taylor Robert clinched the 2019 World Offroad Championship Series title at the penultimate round of racing in Taft, California.
Robert powered his KTM 450 XC-F off the start to capture the holeshot and early lead but a few turns into the opening lap another rider slammed into him pretty hard causing him to experience a ‘dead arm’ throughout the first half of the race. Robert regrouped in the fourth-place position early on and charged hard to bring himself into podium contention by the fourth lap. From there, he continued to click off fast lap times to ultimately land in second with two laps to go. Although Robert wasn’t able to completely make up the deficit created at the beginning of the race, he did put in a stellar come-from-behind ride to finish second-overall and clinch the title with one round remaining.
Team Manager, Antti Kallonen: “This is a big day for Taylor and KTM as this is their first WORCS Championship together since Taylor joined our team in 2014. No doubt Taylor has been fast, but a string of injuries has held him back all these years and finally we were able to put a consistent and injury-free season together and the results are impressive. Congratulations to Taylor and the entire team for successful season.”
Taylor Robert: “It feels good to get this monkey off my back, especially after the last couple years of having some pretty bad luck. All-in-all, it’s been a great season with a lot of wins and I’m just really excited to be able to be focused on ISDE now and to get the championship out of the way before we head over to Portugal.”