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Washougal WORCS Washougal started off our three week road trip to the North West where fifth round of WORCS race was taking place. We slept outside the gate and drove in about 8:30 on Saturday. I saw Kurt Caselli riding his bike from his truck and asked him what race he was going to the line for. He said the Pro Qualifier. I was like "Whoa that is the race I am supposed to be in today." I had Brian unload the bike while I hurried to sign-ups. I barely made it there before the flag waved and took the far inside for the start. It had been raining lately in the area and when the race started I swapped about 47 times on the start strait and thought to myself that it was going to be a slick muddy race. With my poor start I had my work cut out for me in the three lap qualifier and spent the time getting used to the mud and was feeling fairly comfortable by the time the race was over. Brian is top ten in points so he decided to stay out of the rain and save himself for Sunday. When we lined up for the start Brian had about the fifth pick and I had about the 30th but we both got just the spots we were looking for on the gate. When the gate dropped neither Brian and I got the best of starts. I let off a bit in the first turn to avoid confrontation and was left in the middle of the field. Caselli came together with Ty Davis on the start strait and had a hard crash taking David Pearson with him. Ty is leading the series but broke his foot a couple weeks earlier and was trying to tough it out and get some points. Brian came through the first corner alright and was in the tail end of the top ten. On horsepower hill right after the start I had two sets of people crash right in front of me when they collided and had to weave my way through bikes up the big hill. Up front there was a battle of the motocrossers. Lance Smail and Scott Sheak were setting a furious pace up front and pulling away from the rest of the pack. Jason Raines came home to do the race and was trying to run down the lead duo. He said afterwards that he could make up time in the woods but in the grass track the front two were pinning it and would open up nearly twenty seconds in less than a mile. Brian was having a decent race and was in the top five battling with Ty Davis and David Pearson. With a couple laps left Brian had a hard crash on the grass track and let those guys get away from him. I was moving up in the field and was just breaking the top ten when my clutch broke. I wanted to finish so I kept going but was having some problem with stalling and slowed down considerably. I survived the remianing five laps but dropped way back outside of the top twenty. Ty and Pearson both got the better of Brian and he had to settle for sixth. Lance Smail finally shook off his bad luck string and took his first off road win. Jason Raines got by Sheak momentarily but ran out of gas on the last lap and dropped to ninth. Third went to Robert Naughton and Ty Davis toughed it out for fourth ahead of David Pearson. Brian took the sixth spot ahead of Phil Steavens, Brian Brown, Jason Raines, and Nate "Dawg" Kinney came from the semi-Pro line to round out the top ten. |