Arizona World Off Road Championship Series

We headed off to Arizona for the second round of the WORC's series.  We got out of town a little late on behalf of our pitman Illinois Troy who backed his truck off the cliff at Brian's house.  We didn't know where the track was so we gave Destry Abbott who is from Phoenix how to get to the track and ended up in the middle of nowhere.  When we finally arrived at the track we didn't have a bunch of time to get ready for the 250 race so we decided to race the team race instead to learn the track.  The course that they had set up was five miles long.  We went on the motocross track four times and winded out to some good trail sections that were a tractors width wide and watered.  There was also a couple of different sandwashes and generally lots of bumps.  The team race went well.  Brian started and got a third place start and quickly moved into second behind Oakley Leeham.  He pulled out a ten second gap on the first lap and switched over to me.  I liked the track right away.  It was a lot like one of the practice tracks that we have set up and like to ride for practice.  It was really rough making us look for smooth lines to stay out of some of the bumps.  I had a first good lap keeping a good distance ahead of Brian Brown.  For the rest of the race Brian and I switched laps and pulled away from the field.  After the race we headed over to Destry's house.  He has a nice house on the outskirts of Phoenix.  Destry dislocated his shoulder on Friday and was still  planning on racing on Sunday.  We also found out that Scott Myers broke a bone in his foot and Russ Pearson hurt his hand during the races on Saturday.  

For Sunday that track was fixed up a bit with a tractor and watered for the big race.  We were using the starting gate again and lined up in order of our finishes in the first race.  The gate flinched a little about five seconds to go and Shane Watts let loose and got stuck in the gate.  Rodney Smith tried to time the gate but guessed wrong and also stuck himself into the gate.  When the gate actually did drop I got a good drive off of the concrete.  When we hit the dirt I pinned it and let my KTM do the rest.  I filed into about a sixth place start.  Brian was just a couple of guys behind me starting about eighth.  The pace was really fast right away but I was really glad I had a good start and was running near the front.  Steve Hatch got by me close to the start and I snuck by a guy on the inside of a turn.  Brian caught up to me on the first lap and blew past me in a rough section.  We raced together and at the beginning of the third lap Brian hit something in the silt and got pitched sideways.  I took the line on the right and got a run on him on a long wide open straight that we were pinned in fifth, probably going about seventy miles an hour and I kept the gas on a little longer and got by going onto the moto track.  I charged as hard as I could and caught up to and got by Ryan Terleki and into fifth place.  I saw behind me that Rodney Smith was behind me and when I went into pit after the fifth lap Rodney passed me.  I was in a groove and kept changing ahead.  I stayed the same distance behind Rodney for the next five laps and Ty Davis was behind me staying the same distance behing me.  Brian was in a battle for eighth place with Shane Watts.  Shane would pass Brian and then crash only to come flying by again.  I pulled into the pits after the tenth lap with two laps to go and Troy gave me a quick splash of gas with the whole pit probably only taking about three seconds.  My bike soon began sputter and I knew that my air filter was clogged.  I have been to lots of dusty races and my KTM seems to be the last to have this problem but this time it was effected.  It soon stopped running at all and I had to watch all of the riders behind me fly by.  I took of my air box cover and wiped off the filter but it still wouldn't start.   I took it off and shook it but it still wouldn't run so I undid the clip and finished out the lap without the filter all of the way on.  I stopped in the pits and put on another dirty filter that I had from the day before and limped it around the last lap for 14th place.  Brian also had the same problem on the last lap and he had to shake off his filter to finish in 11th place.  Shane Espinito took the holeshot and railed everyone on the day to take $5000 and the win.  Mike Kiedrowski was second taking over the points lead with local hero Destry Abbott taking third even with his hurt shoulder.  Steve Hatch was fifth with teammate Rodney Smith rounding out the top five.  Watts got by Davis on the last lap for sixth.  Brian and I were disappointed with our finish after the way that we rode but that's racing.  The new WORC's series is really good getting all of the top riders out on the same track at the same time in a fair race.  It is nice only having the pros race with no lappers or distraction from going fast.  It looks like this series will help off road racing move up to a level that it deserves.

Back