Ken claims first win of the season

Photo: Colin Vito

Following up a dominant performance by the Evol ladies on Saturday at Xilinx, Ken Benesh took the top step of the podium at the first race of the Without Limits series.

"The race played out as you would expect," said Ken. "It was a dirt crit to with a group of five of us through the majority of the race. We had a pretty large gap back to the chasers.

"On the first couple of laps I could see that Steve Stefko had been caught off the back of our group and was trying to bridge up. I decided to get on the front and push the pace to make sure he had to put in a pretty strong effort to get back on, as I knew he would be a contender later on in the race.

"Spencer suggested that I play it conservative, so I waited patiently for a good time to go."

Ken made sure he was the first one into the mud pit on the last lap. To do so, he attacked on the flat pavement section before the descent into mud pit, opening up a five-second gap. Behind, Chris Case suffered a spectacular bone-breaking crash, which aided Ken in getting a gap.

After the mud pit it was full gas through the twisty sandy section. "I had to remind myself to be calm and not overcook the corners and was able to hold it to the finish," said Ken.