Nathan Woods, Defending WORCS Champion - Interview - Dirt Rider Magazine

The 2006 WORCS season is now underway and Kawasaki's Nathan Woods headed in on one of the only factory rides in the series. He is seeking to defend his number one plate for the second year in a row, this time on a Team Green KX450F. But as former mentor Ty Davis once said, "The number one plate is harder to keep than it is to earn in the first place!"Woods talks with us about winning the 2005 World Off Road Championship Series (despite a DNF on the last round), his biggest competition in 2006, moving on from Ty Davis and how factory support is changing the face of WORCS._DR: Is Ty Davis right? Was keeping the Championship plate harder than earning it to begin with?_
Woods: Oh definitely. There's a lot more stress on you. You know inside you can do it and you've done it before, but you always have more pressure. I mean, you don't want to lose the number one plate. I guess it's as much pressure as you put on yourself and I thought I had a lot. I just didn't really show it. I tried to just go out and ride my race and finish consistently throughout the year. And I did that besides the last race. _What happened in the last race?_
I had a lot on my mind. I was switching motorcycles, had a lot of other things going on... my wife and I are expecting and I just found that out before we went there. So I had a lot on my mind that day. I really wanted to win that race just because it's the last race; going into the next season it'd just be good to win. But things weren't working out. I crashed really big, on like the third lap. I hit this big sand jump and it ripped my feet off and flipped me over the bars. and I just basically called it and said, "You know what, I'm just going to call it a year and pack it in and hit it hard next year."_Well that's kind of a bummer but you still had an incredible year._
Yeah, out of 13 races I finished 11 on the podium. So I can't complain too much. I had an awesome year. It was beyond great. I can match that again this year—with five wins and win a championship. I think that's what it's going to take to win a championship: be consistently on the podium and not make mistakes._Does taking the number one plate to a new team amount to even more pressure for you?_
I don't think so. I think there's always pressure—I mean, racing is pressure. But I think the team that I'm going to is a lot different. It's a team; it's more of a corporate type deal instead of just a team with another rider. So I'm not going to put too much pressure on myself. The bikes are really good and I think I can win on them. I'm not going to stress out about it yet! _Kawasaki has a full-factory race effort in WORCS this year?_
Yeah, they're doing a full program for next year. So they're going to have the diesel and three or four riders. So it's a full-blown deal. A little bit different from the program I've been doing._Is the series changing with all the factory support this year?_
Yeah, Suzuki also has support with Ryan Hughes there. You know, it's going to change the whole ball game with how people look at our kind of racing. If anyone's going to be able to beat Ryno, it's either gonna be me or Kurt Caselli. I think those are going to be my biggest opponents out there._You and Kurt Caselli had some close battles last year; what's it like racing with him?_
Caselli's a young kid and has a lot of drive and it was a pleasure to ride with someone like that. I'm a little bit older than he is and it just showed me, when I was his age I wanted it as bad as he did. Some things just didn't work out for him and things worked out for me, but I think over the years with me being older, I've just learned how to win a championship and relax and just not get yourself in a bind so you can't make up points. That's what I was taught by Ty is to never get yourself in a place where you have to be making up points at the end of the year. It's easier to lose points than it is to make them up._Is it going to be weird for you moving on from Ty?_
Oh yeah, I mean it's a big change for me. My family and my wife and Ty's wife are really close, good friends. It's going to be different, but he's still my good friend and I'm going to use Zip-Ty products but now I have to race against him to beat him. Obviously our team races might get shorted which sucks because we haven't lost a team race in two-and-a-half years. It's going to be a change for me. To know someone who's been doing it for so long and has so much experience, it's pretty nice to have them on your side. So it's going to change it a little bit, but I don't think too much. I learned a lot and I'm going to use what he taught me... against him, basically._Will you be on the KX450F all year this season?_
Yeah, the 450 is what I'll be on, and the two-stroke (KX 250) also. That's another thing I liked about this switch is the fact that I can ride either or. didn't really specify what I have to ride. With Yamaha it was the same thing. I could ride whichever bike I could win on. In other companies, I think they want you to stay with whatever bike they want to push._Do you have plans this year to race anything besides WORCS?_
I'm going to ride a couple GNCCs, I'm going to try that again, and I'm not really sure what else. I think I'm going to do six days (International Six Day Enduro), so my whole program is going to change. That's one of the reasons why I made a decision to switch was because of the opportunity to ride some different stuff, in both ends of the country. I'm excited about it; I've always wanted to do Six Days. It's going to be a change for myself.

The WORC Series picks up again this weekend with round three in Lake Havasu, Arizona. Check on Dirtrider.com early next week for results and photos.