Berthoud WORCS

I had been to the track at Berthoud before but didn't get a chance to ride, only watch Brian.  Brian wasn't racing this weekend though because he got a tune up on his body after breaking his collarbone two weeks ago.  I decided to race the KTM 450 MXC after hearing that the race would be pretty fast.  Upon seeing the track I knew that I made the right decision.  The whole track was a graded grass track.  It was fast and fun but didn't have any real off road sections in it.  It rained quite a bit in the days leading up to the race so it was a little muddy early on Saturday.  I wasn't racing until 2PM on Saturday so the conditions were excellent.  I didn't get off to a real good start but the 450 was working great and I tried to move forward.  I rode with Josh Weinsfels for a little while until I made my way by.  I kept moving forward as some of the other top riders stopped to make adjustments on the bike or just check out lines.  Kurt Caselli and Russ Pearson both looked to be taking it easy as I was able to make my way by them without much of a fight.  The course was really fun.  It was fast and we were hard on the throttle all the way around.  There were a bunch of good sweeping turns some of which had good berms around that everyone could rail.  I finished the open race in fourth behind Nathan Woods, Lance Smail, and Ty Davis.  I was tired though and already had some blisters starting so I knew it was going to be a challenge to charge hard for the entire two hours the next day.  

Sunday was a nice sunny day and along with the grooming to the track we were looking forward to a fun race.  I got off to a midpack start and wanted to make a few passes to get up with the leaders but it didn't work out like I wanted and I was getting passed by a few guys who got worse starts than me.  Bobby Bonds and Kurt Casselli both passed me and I tried to stay with them.  The pace was wide open at the beginning but I felt comfortable with the pace I was running.  On the second lap my bike started to run poorly.  It was cutting out when I held it wide open which was a lot on this track.  I tried to clean in out or hope it would fix itself but it continued to run bad.  I got passed by the Kawasaki duo of David Pearson and Brian Brown and was not able to keep up.  I pulled into the pits about the fourth lap to try to find out what was wrong.  I checked the choke and thought I would try to take off the one way valve that was on the tank.  I gave that a try and went back out.  Immediately the bike began to run better but I was getting doused with gas every jump now after ripping off the vent line.  I was near the back of the pro back and among the semi pros and I knew that it was going to be difficult to make up time on anyone.  I kept pushing trying to make up a few positions.  I was also bummed that I didn't have anyone to ride with.  I thought it was going to be a good race among a few guys and I was looking forward to some fun racing with some guys during the day.  I pulled into the pits and gassed up at the hour mark and the Olsen's and Spody were nice enough to help me out in the pits.  I had them grab a breather line off another bike so I wouldn't get gas on me for the rest of the race and made my way back to the track.  I had just about caught up to Brian Brown and Ricky Dietrich and was bummed that I would have to work on catching them again.  

Russ Pearson got into the lead early after getting by Nathan Wood and Lance Smail.  Russ opened up a big lead on the rest of the pack early.  Woods, Bonds, Smail, Davis, Matt Karlson, Ty and Bryce Olsen all had established themselves as the lead pack.  No one was really making any moves on each other or even making up time on each other.  Kurt Caselli got a bad start and once he made his way past Bryce Olsen he really got on the gas and started making passes.  Kurt was making up about fifteen seconds on everyone each lap and he made his way though the pack easily.  He got a little help when Bobby Bonds ran out of gas and Lance Smail had some problem with his hands which dropped both riders out of the race.  Kurt made his way into second but wasn't able to catch Russ who finally took his first WORCS race win.  Russ has had a lot of second place finishes and was really happen to finally get a race win.  Kurt made his way up to second with Nathan Woods making another trip to the podium and further extending his big points lead.  Matt Karlson rode a strong race and was forth followed by Destry Abbott.  Bryce Olsen rode awesome and finally got his revenge on Ty Davis when he passed Ty late in the race for sixth, his best WORCS finish.  Ty was seventh, then David Pearson, Ted Campbell, and Brian Brown.  I caught up to the back fender of Brian Brown but didn't get close enough for a last lap pass and just missed the top ten with and 11th.

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