In her eighth year in the class, Korie Steede was finally able to wrap up the 2025 WXC GNCC title. That was just part of the success for her this year, as Steede also won the Sprint Enduro championship and was on the winning ISDE Women’s Trophy team. Jamie Guida had Korie on the MotoXpod Show recently to talk about her amazing season.
So Korie, you won the 2025 GNCC WXC title as well as the 2025 Sprint Enduro. These are your first titles, right?
Korie Steede: Yeah. I mean in the women's pro class. Yep. In the youth class, I won the women's class two years in a row. But, yeah, this is like my first year snagging my professional titles.
Well, first things first. Congratulations on a hell of a year. It's got to feel good. And I want to get into all that. I mean, really, over the last couple years, I was looking back at the results. You've been, second and third a lot. Rachael Archer, your nemesis has won some titles. But yeah, you were behind by a little bit going into the final round of Ironman weren't you?
Yeah. So going into the final round I had to win and she had to get third. So, it was like a super high stress situation like leading into the weekend. Just being there and having everyone come up to me [to talk about it], like it's a big weekend, you know?
Just everyone has their two cents which obviously doesn't help when it's already a high stress situation! But yeah, all in all it literally couldn't have played out any better. I had a little luck on my side, and then, man, I just I rode my heart out that whole race, and I just I wasn't letting her have it again, you know?
Yeah, you retired her! [Laughs] She announced she was going home after that. No more Rachael.
[Laughs] Yeah, I know, I couldn’t let her go home with this last title, you know!
Also, you were on the US Women's World Trophy team at ISDE, and I think you got third overall or second overall and the team won the title. So, was there anything different this year that you did differently or just the cards kind of fell where they did and it finally all came together?
Honestly, the cards kind of fell in place, finally. Like the last three years, I had been leading a GNCC championship, and just like silly things kind of happened and other things didn't go my way. I could sit here and blame this person or whoever, but at the end of the day it was my fault. And then this year, I just didn't give myself an option, I woke up every day and I told myself, “This is my year. This is my championship.” Like, I'm not letting anyone else get it. And I've been working with Denise Hatch. She's my mental coach. And I've manifested and I've put in all the work to make it happen. So, there was really no reason I couldn't do it. I believed in it this year.
Okay. Now, that last statement, you believed it this year, but you're not saying you didn't believe it in years past. You're just saying everything fell into place perfectly with your trainer and all that. And it does take a lot of pieces of the puzzle to make it all come together.
Oh, absolutely. And like I said, in previous years, I just had some people in my corner that just didn't bring what I needed to the table. And this year I sifted through and I have a really good group of people in my corner. And at the end of the day that's a really big part of what we do.
What's that foundation that made a big change?
Truthfully, just my personal life. The people that I allow in my circle and the people that I surrounded myself with this year just were in the same mindset and just kind of had the same goals as me. I spent a lot of time at my teammate Craig Delong's house in PA and he kind of has a little facility at his house and I just I jelled really well there. I rode with Craig a lot and it helped me stay in it all year, you know?
But talk about the difference between sprint Enduro and GNCC. And which one do you favor?
Yeah. So, sprint is like more of a moto style race in the off-road world. It's a Saturday Sunday event. And then there's an enduro test and then a cross test. So, it's like one track is all grass and then one in the woods. And then you do three each on Saturday. So, you do six tests Saturday, six tests Sunday, like three grass, three woods. And it's just you're racing the clock like you go as fast as you can, it's usually like a six-mile track. At the end of the end of the weekend, whoever went the fastest and has the lowest time wins. And then the GNCCs, obviously we race for two hours in the woods, you deal with lappers. There's just a lot of factors that can play into those two hours. So, I don't know. I definitely have been working really hard over the last few years to get good at GNCC, so I definitely favor them as of now. And then like the Sprint Enduros like Brandy Richards, man, that's like, that's her gig! And she kind of pushed me to a different level. Racing those with her in ’23 ‘24. We raced those together. So, I'm really grateful for that. I've learned a lot from her. But yeah, I would definitely say I favor the GNCC for sure.
When you're racing like a GNCC, you have like a rabbit in front of you. Possibly you have somebody coming behind you, you don't want them to pass you. And during those enduros, you're like, “I don't know if this person's been going faster than me or not.” Is there more of a competition when you're out there in the GNCC, like as far as in your head?
Yeah, honestly, I think for myself, the sprint enduros is more of a mind game because, say I start first and then the person behind me waits 10 seconds instead of 15 and they're a little closer than the last test. And it's so hard to just get out of your head and just race yourself out there and not think behind you. At the GNCC I have my mechanic and our team manager and all these people with pit boards telling me where everybody is. I don't have to think about it. And obviously we all start together. But yeah, the sprint enduros man, those can be a real mind game.
Why does anybody want to do ISDE? That just looks like, “I just want to go somewhere so I can suffer on a dirt bike.”
[Laughs] Yeah. We do everything after we impound our bikes. We are the only people allowed to touch it. Like tire changes, air filters. If something goes wrong, it's all on us. Like we all have mechanics at every check that can walk us through whatever. But it's all on us after those bikes are impounded for six days. It's such a rush because you get done with the test, and then you have to get through your transfer in an X amount of time. And like the transfer is, it's not easy. You know, like you could be looking off the side of a cliff and just praying to God that you don't fall off, you know? And you have to show up for your team. Man, that event itself is so exhausting. Like the riding, the mental, all of it as a whole is just insane.
Is there an event that you are like, “Yeah, I want to go do this thing at some point in my career.”
I think I'd like to do a little bit of the World Enduro. Which is similar to sprint enduro and like ISDE, and then ISDE was on my bucket list, and I've been there three times now, so, like, it's really cool to check that off. I've wanted to go and be on that team since I was like seven years old. So, to say that I've gone and done it and won tests and my first year there, I got second overall and it was close to winning the overall. So yeah, it's pretty surreal to think about like how far I've already come.
Have you thought about like Endurocross or anything like that?
Yeah. Actually my, one of my good friends Shelby Turner, she's been trying to twist my wrist and get me to go, but I just can't make myself look like a fool out there!
So, I wanted you to take us back through. This is probably what made the GNCC title so tight. You had an incident, I think, at Snowshoe. I was reading about it on your Instagram, but take us through that moment, and that sounds scary.
Yeah, actually, I took a screenshot of these messages from Shelby Turner. The only person that watched it because I wanted to read her messages. So basically, I'm fourth gear wide open on a ski road on the side of a mountain. And they had like kind of like an X arrow marking off like this little ditch. I had basically went to the right to go around it and I hit something I didn't see. And basically the next thing I knew, I was free falling off the side of the mountain, and it felt like I had fallen into the Grand Canyon! Like, I know it couldn't have been that far, but man, like, I don't think I've ever been so scared in my life. And looking back now, like it's funny, but in the moment, man, I thought my life was over, you know, for a split second there.
Watch the entire MotoXpod Show with Korie here:
Yeah. If you have enough time to think that that's a long fall!
Oh, yeah! No, it was bad. It was definitely one of one of my worst crashes. So, yeah, these messages, I thought nobody had saw it until like, later in the day. And she had messaged me and said “Your bike was eight feet in the air, did three flips, then you did two front flips and landed off the edge of the world. I didn't know it was you until I saw your head pop up.” I didn't even know I stood up. I must have had like so much adrenaline that she said, I just popped up. And then she said, “I saw the whole thing. It was the worst crash I've ever witnessed. I literally was like, Holy bleep! And then it was you. I almost stopped, but you stood up.” She said, “The fact that you finished is impressive.”
So, you finished?
Yeah. So, I think it happened the second lap. I don't even know how I got myself out of there. I think I had so much adrenaline and just blood pumping that I somehow managed. It was like a hard enduro section that would be like, in freaking Erzberg. Like the Tennessee knockout.
There's no reason that I got myself out of there. And, like, somebody was on my side that day. After this crash, half a lap later, my toes and my legs are, like, starting to tingle, and I'm like, “Man, this isn't good.” Like, my neck was hurting really bad. My head. I was getting blurred vision. I took my goggles off, like just trying to get air. I stopped at my team manager, and I'm telling him, like, “Hey, like I'm not good.” Like, I know I need to finish because just for this championship’s sake, I knew I had to get to the finish line. And so basically, I cruise around like another lap or two, get to the finish line, go straight to the medics. They put me in a neck brace, put me in the ambulance, take me to the hospital. Get all the all the scans done, whatever. And I had just hyperextended my neck, like, to the point that it was terrible. Like my legs were going numb, like my feet were going numb. Luckily there were no fractures. So, I'm like, going back to the track with my tail between my legs because you know how it is like going to the hospital when you think something's wrong and then nothing is broken. But when I got that text from Shelby, that made everything better because I was like, “Yeah, I knew I wasn't a bitch” you know?
I want to finish this out with 2026. Are you back with Rockstar Husqvarna? Do you know what the plan is?
Yeah. Back with Husky, the plan is to keep pushing forward. Obviously keep developing as a rider. And coming to ‘26 even stronger. You know, Husky’s believed in me for the last couple years, and I'm super excited to announce I'll be with them for a third year.
Well, congratulations on that. Who do you think will step up? In Rachael's spot, you mentioned Brandy Richards, who missed a bunch of races this season, but do you think she's the biggest competitor you have, or is there somebody else that maybe is kind of new coming up?
Yeah, absolutely. Obviously Brandy. And then we have Tayla Jones. I believe she'll be back next season. So, she'll be a good one. And then Danielle MacDonald from New Zealand. She's young, but she's definitely got the speed.
