WORCS:
Hollister, Ca.
April 19, 2009
Race Day:
I was pretty confident about my gate pick and knew the start was going to be really important. The off-road sections were going to be hard to pass and a little on the dusty side (a couple sections). When the gate dropped I had a pretty good jump, but when I went to go to the inside I got bumped by Kevin Rookstool and had to shut off. At this point I was still in the top 10. Then I saw Gavin Gracyk's bike lying in the middle of the course! Unfortunately I had guys on both sides of me so I just had to hit his bike and hope for the best. Somehow I saved it, but it was full pucker time when it happened! We did one full lap on the MX track before going into the off-road section. Since everyone knew it was really important to be up front, people were just hitting each there and it was crazy. I know I didn't make any new friends on the mx track, I just hope I didn't take anyone out. When I left the mx track, I made it back inside the top 10 and was right behind Woods and Dietrich. I was happy where I was at and just keyed off them for the first half of the lap. Then coming into a corner my front end washed out and I went down. Justin Soule was right behind me and went down too. I tried to get going again as fast as I could, but it took a little bit to fire it up. I lost about 10 spots there! Not too far after that, we came to the first pro section and there was a bottle neck. I sat there for about 15-seconds (which feels like forever when you're racing) waiting for everyone to jump the ravine we had to go over. Once I got through here I made a few more passes, and after the first lap was in 18th. From here on I just kept slowly moving up every lap, but just couldn't get into an aggressive racing mode. It was a little on the sketchy side in some sections, and I was just trying to ride smooth instead. At the hour mark I had made it up to 14th or so. Then with one lap to go I was up to 11th with Ritzman and Garrison not too far in front of me. I got right on Ritzman, and he was cool enough to give me some room to get by. Halfway through I caught Garrison and made a good pass. I tried to pull away, but both of them stayed really close. I was able to hold them off to finish 9th.
Overall Summary:
I came into this race expecting better results than 9th, but I was having a tough time pushing myself in some of the sections today (pretty dusty). I really never put in a super fast lap and pretty much just kept the same pace most of the race. I still felt like I rode well and the bike worked great. Now I'm just looking forward to this weekend's H&H.
Results (Pro top 25):
1st Ricky Dietrich
2nd Timmy Weigand
3rd Bobby Bonds
4th Damon Huffman
5th Mike Brown
6th Kyle Summers
7th Taylor Robert
8th Nick Brozovich
9th Destry Abbott
10th Bobby Garrison
11th Brenden Ritzman
12th Jamie Lanza
13th Justin Soule
14th Arik Swan
15th Colton Udall
16th Ryan Orr
17th Adam Miller
18th Robby Bell
19th Bobby Prochnau
20th Beau Baron
21st Nathan Woods
22nd Kevin Urquhart
23rd Vince Friese
24th Gavin Gracyk
25th Kendal Norman
Other Notes:
It was really cool to see some people at the races, that I don't see too often. Team Green's boss Reid Nordin flew in from watching the World Mini's in Vegas. I wanted to give him a hard time for wearing such long clothes (and gloves) since it was so hot, but I was feeling nice:) He has a big problem with poison oak and this place is covered with it.
The guys at Motion Pro came down to hang out and watch the race too. They brought me some new pit boards and the new catalog. They have some really cool stuff and I know I'll be ordering here soon.
I thought the WORCS crew did a good job on the course and I really like the pro sections. The first one was really tough, and you had to jump the ravine with not much of a run. Besides a few dusty sections where they couldn't get water on it, it was a good course.
Ricky D. put in another awesome ride and was gone. He was a little over a minute ahead of Timmy and 5-minutes ahead of Bonds. Ricky also took over the points lead again, which is pretty impressive since he didn't get any points at one round (3 wins and 1 race without points).
This week I'm going over to California early to shoot some photos in the new 2010 Thor gear. It should be a good time and it's always fun to hang out with them.
My next race is this weekend in Lucerne, California for a H&H.
2009 Sponsors: Monster Kawasaki Racing, Thor, Dunlop, GPR stablilzers, Shoei, Pro Circuit, Stephen Gall Training, SIDI, IMS, Zip-Ty,HoyFox.com, Motion Pro, BRP, Braking, Works Connection, Concept2, CTI2, Maxima, Kicker, O'GIO, Steahly, RK/Excel, Renthal, Bent, Hinson, Jonre Multimedia, Scott, Cyto Sport, N-Style, UNI, Parkway Chiropractic, Tire-Balls, and ZLT.