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Brandy Richards is one of the most decorated women in American off-road motorcycle racing — a multi-series champion, a two-time FIM 6DAYS individual title holder, and a racer who has spent the better part of two decades proving that women can compete at the highest level of the sport and make a living doing it.

EARLY YEARS

Born June 15, 1996, in Lake Havasu City, Arizona, Richards did not ease into motorcycles — she started racing at age four on a PW-50 in the 4–6 class at a WORCS event in her hometown. [1] Lake Havasu City would remain her base, and WORCS would remain a central thread in her career for the next two decades. She qualified for her first Loretta Lynn National the first year she was old enough to enter the 9–13 class. [1]

Progression was not uninterrupted. At twelve, a torn ACL required surgery, and she described having to train hard just to catch up after missing a year of competition. [1] A 2015 crash broke her wrist and tailbone, and recovering from those injuries at a fragile point in her career came close to making her consider stepping away from the sport entirely. [1] She stayed. By 2016, when a RevZilla profile found her balancing a day job in Havasu with work toward a Sports Medicine degree, she was still racing on what she described as a “win-to-eat program” — a phrase that sharpens considerably when you know she had to take a summer job when COVID shut racing down. [1] [2]

Her path to factory support was not direct. She raced for Team Green, Kawasaki’s off-road division, and was supported at various points by Yamaha, JM Racing, Fly Racing, Oakley, Dunlop, and Bell Helmets before finding the backing that matched her results. [1] She grew up racing motocross and described off-road as her “first true love,” using motocross events as both training and networking. [1]

OTHER INTERESTS

In 2016, Richards was working toward a Sports Medicine degree while holding down a day job in Lake Havasu City alongside her racing commitments. [1] Beyond the sport itself and that academic pursuit, the available record does not document separate hobbies or outside pursuits — which, given the schedule she was keeping, seems like an entirely reasonable outcome.

EARLY SUCCESS

Richards took her first WORCS Women’s Pro title in 2014. [3] By 2016, she was already articulating a deliberate plan to grow as a competitor, describing a decision to push herself into new territory: “I decided I need to move on to grow more as a racer, to get even better.” [1] The goals she named at the time — the AMA National Hare & Hounds, a 100-mile GNCC, and the ISDE — read now like a checklist she was about to start crossing off. [1]

The 2017 season was the turning point. She won the WORCS Women’s Pro championship that year, and then won it again every single year through 2022 — six consecutive titles. [3] One account from the tire industry reported that she won every Women’s Pro race in the 2017 season. [3] In 2020, she added NGPC Women’s Pro to her schedule and won that title too, then defended it in 2021 and 2022, running two full domestic championships simultaneously. [4]

NOTABLE ACHIEVEMENTS

• 2014: WORCS Women’s Pro champion. [3]
• 2017–2022: WORCS Women’s Pro champion — six consecutive titles, with a reported sweep of every Women’s Pro race in the 2017 season. [3]
• 2020–2022: NGPC Women’s Pro champion — three consecutive titles with FMF KTM. [4]
• 2021: FIM ISDE Women’s World Trophy team champion as part of the United States Women’s World Trophy squad; KTM reports she won every individual test on every day of the event — a record the manufacturer describes as unprecedented in the event’s 97-year history. [4]
• 2023: FIM ISDE individual Women’s class winner and Women’s World Trophy team champion. [5]
• 2024: AMA U.S. Sprint Enduro Pro Women champion on a KTM 250 XC-F with FMF KTM Factory Racing Team Landers — reported as an undefeated season. [6]
• 2024: FIM 6DAYS individual Women’s class champion and Women’s World Trophy team champion. [4]
• 2025: FIM 6DAYS individual Women’s class champion and Women’s World Trophy team champion. [4]
• 2025: GNCC WXC class win at The Mountaineer; second-place finishes at Buckwheat 100, The John Penton, and Ironman. [7]
• 2026: Multiple GNCC WXC class wins with FMF KTM Factory Racing on a KTM 350 XC-F, including a victory at Powerline Park reported as her third win of the season at that point. [8]

INSPIRATIONS

Richards has been direct about what drove her to improve: racing against men. She named Evan Stice as a competitor who often beat her during the 2021 season, and said that competing against faster riders pushed her to get faster herself. [2] She has also been candid about the structural challenges she faced as a young woman trying to make a career in a sport that offered limited models for what that could look like. When she was eighteen, she said, seeing few women racing full-time made it difficult to imagine it as a viable profession. [2]

That experience shaped how she thinks about the sport’s future. She has said that women’s racing needs multiple series, more financial backing, and greater media coverage, and that she wants to demonstrate to younger women that they can be competitive with men and sustain a career doing it. [2] She said women’s racing had grown significantly over the five years preceding a 2022 interview and expressed hope that growth would continue. [2]

REPUTATION

KTM, her factory sponsor, describes Richards as “racing royalty.” [4] That characterization is difficult to argue with. The 2021 ISDE test sweep — every test, every day, across the full event — stands as the kind of achievement that doesn’t require editorial embellishment. KTM describes it as a record not previously accomplished in the event’s 97-year history, though that framing comes from the manufacturer rather than an independent governing body citation. [4]

What the record reflects more broadly is a career built on consistency across formats. WORCS, NGPC, ISDE, Sprint Enduro, GNCC — she has competed seriously in all of them and won championships in most. For a rider who was once working a day job and supplementing her racing income wherever she could, the trajectory is striking. “I feel like I’m really lucky to be able to race for a living,” she said in 2016. “I love what I do. I wouldn’t take anything back.” [1]

FUTURE GOALS/PLANS

Announced in December 2025, Richards’s 2026 program with FMF KTM Factory Racing includes a third GNCC WXC campaign and a bid to reclaim the AMA U.S. Sprint Enduro Pro Women title. [9] Through the early part of the 2026 GNCC season she has been competitive, collecting multiple class wins including a victory at Powerline Park in Ohio. [8]

References:

[1] RevZilla Common Tread
[2] Cycle News
[3] Dirt Bike Magazine – U.S. Off-Road Champions Grand List
[4] KTM – Brandy Richards
[5] Racer X Online – 2023 ISDE Full Event Recap
[6] Cycle News – 2024 AMA U.S. Sprint Enduro Round 8 Results
[7] Racer X Online – Brandy Richards Rider Page
[8] GNCC Racing – Brandy Richards and Dante Oliveira Lead Winning Weekend for FMF KTM Factory Racing
[9] Racer X Online – FMF KTM Factory Racing Team Announces 2026 Off-Road Lineup