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Mesquite WORCS Saturday Brian crashed the week before the race, putting a little crack in his hip, therefore wasn't able to make the trip to Mesquite. The injury isn't too serious and should only put him out of action for a couple of weeks. Mikey from Topspeed traveled with me and we headed out for the race. When we got to the track the next morning we saw a little motocross track and a desert setting for the rest of the 3 mile WORCS course. I was riding the 250 Pro race which started at 10:00 so after arriving I only had a few minutes to get signed up, get my gear on and get to the line. Luckily there was still the perfect spot on the line for me right about 10 spots from the inside. We had to start on the right side of the bike with the motor running. When the flag waved I jumped on the bike and gunned my new 250 SX and it shot me ahead of the guys on either side of me. I had a wheel on the rest of the riders to the inside line and had Destry Abbott beside me on the right. I went off the first jump and went to the outside since Destry was on the right side of me going into the corner. The next thing I know I get plowed from behind and am lying in the second corner hoping to not get run over. I got up and wasn't feeling too well so I went back to the pits to make sure I was alright and get my bike straightened out. I took a few minutes before I was ready to ride but still wanted to get out and at least learn the course. Halfway around the lap there I found a big bottleneck. The course went down by a river and had a path through the little trees. It was good traction but in one spot it was a little soft and a bunch of ruts developed and ate some guys up. I wasn't really racing so I waited my turn and sneaked around the side of the ruts. A good portion of the course was down in the river bottom and was sandy and rough. The whoops were already a couple of feet deep and I knew that was where the real race was going to be on Sunday. I stopped once more in the race and adjusted my suspension. It seemed pointless to go as fast as you could around the course when halfway through each lap there were nearly 100 people stuck in a line waiting to get through the mud. The last couple of laps a trail was bulldozed around the mudhole and that opened up a couple of options for the race the next day. I got used to the motocross track fairly quickly but didn't like the big tabletop it had. There was a steep ramp for the landing and I didn't feel comfortable on it so I decided to land short on that one every lap. Sunday I drew starting number 23 for the pro race and had a decent gate on the outside. When the gate dropped I got a good jump with my new bike and kept the throttle pinned deep into the corner since the guys on the inside had position on me. I sat about tenth spot after the first turn. The pace was wide open as usual at the start of a WORCS race until we left the motocross track. Leaving the moto track Russ Pearson had fallen right at the start of the rough choppy fireroad. I never start the race fast enough and had a few guys go by me. The big decision came where the bottleneck was on Saturday's race. I thought that the ruts would have been fixed overnight so I took the more risky faster way and right away saw about four guys burried in the mud. I took a second to find a good way through the mudhole and made it through without getting stuck but decided that was the last time I would take that line. I got into a comfortable pace and tried to put in consistent laps.. I made it up to the top ten and had a good battle going with Joey Lanza for about five laps. He was going faster than me on the faster choppy fireroad section but I could gain a little in the deep whoops and made a pass on Joey a couple times down in the muddy section. I felt comfortable at that pace but developed some blisters that broke open and started bleeding about an hour into the two hour race. I kept charging but was trying to miss some of the big chop and find smooth lines. With about twenty minutes left in the race I had my handguards get caught on a piece of wire that had broken and made its way into the course. It put me down pretty fast and I had to look and see what happened. I knew there was a fence but I was at least a foot away from it and didn't expect to get caught on the fence. On the last couple of laps I just couldn't hang on to the bars anymore and had to baby it in to the finish. I dropped quite a few postions on the last three laps and came in 14th spot. Lance Smail won the race. He got a good start and opened up a thirty second gap on the first lap and from there rode a trouble free race. Kurt Caselli and Ty Davis had a battle going for second until Ty ran out of gas and then broke a chain for a DNF. Kurt kept charging to the finish and was down just thirty seconds to Lance at the end. Destry Abbott put in a strong race for third ahead of Nathan Woods and Steve Hatch. |