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Jarrod McClure's
Lake Havasu & Steele Creek ATV Race Report
Jarrod McClure Reports
on WORCS Round 3 & GNCC Round 2
Frankfurt, KY (3/29/2011) -
It’s always rough getting up at 3 am to
catch a flight to California, then pull pretty
much an all-nighter in Cafro’s garage….
After finishing a solid fifth place at the Georgia
GNCC I came home on Sunday, had a day to unwind
a little then jumped on a flight Tuesday morning
for San Diego…”The Greatest City in
the history of mankind”…sorry had
to quote Anchorman there! From there I headed
to the MCR compound where I spent 3 long days
prepping my National Guard Yokley Racing Coastal
machine for the upcoming race at Lake Havasu that
weekend.
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Jarrod
McClure taking the Holeshot at Lake Havasu
aboard his Yokley Racing/ Coastal Honda
TRX450R ATV |
I arrived at the track Friday, and I actually
for the first time since I’ve been racing
WORCS practiced…it seems I never make practice
on Fridays. It was nice to get out there and ride
the motocross track though. The track was super
rough, it is winded back and forth through a gravel
pit. There is a ton of little loose rocks, combined
with soft sand. A few laps in and the track would
be DEEP…and not just the whoops, I mean
everywhere… in the turns it was like being
on rails with you skid plate dragging. On Saturday
we had our pro qualifier, where I ended up in
the number 6 position for gate pick, but there
really wasn’t a gate. It would be a dead
engine start just like Primm. Coming from racing
GNCC I am experienced in dead engine starts, and
I was pretty confident about pulling a holeshot!
Sunday at noon would be the main event. We took
our usual parade lap, and I noticed a lot of the
track had been freshly groomed and watered. At
least we would have two or three smooth laps.
As expected when Homer dropped the flag I fired
first and my Baldwin Motorsports motor and Kenda
tires pulled me to the Atvriders.com holeshot!
I stayed in the lead for a short time before being
jumped over by the number 62 of Jeremie Warina.
I followed in second for the remainder of the
lap with Dustin Nelson on my grab bar.
As we made our way through the second lap Nelson
tried to pass and I closed the door on him, but
a few turns later I tried the same thing, but
he was already committed and we collided sending
me over the bars. I got going again quick after
almost being run over by Josh Fredericks, and
ran in around 8th behind Mike Cafro. As we neared
the end of lap two and I was getting back on pace
I sucked one of those little rocks into my chain
causing it to derail and jam in my swingarm. Ten
minutes later I was going again but I was pretty
exhausted and frustrated!
The remainder of the race went smooth and I just
rode a steady pace. I was able to pass John Shafe,
and a few other racers who had broken chains,
or had mechanical issues. When I hit the checkered
flag I was in 9th position…I was glad for
the top ten after my stressful day.
From Havasu I would make the long trek home across
I-40 in my pickup truck. I left the track on Sunday,
and couldn’t waste any time. I had to be
in North Carolina for the GNCC the following Saturday.
I arrived home on Wednesday night, and I loaded
back up and headed for Steele Creek on Thursday
night. We arrive at the track on Friday morning,
and I mountain biked a few miles. Hills….
Steep hills pretty much sums up the track. Steele
Creek is one of our roughest tracks, the hills
get super choppy, going up and down, and it is
also hard to pass there so a good start is important.
Thanks to Marc Spataro (Motoprotraining) for
always drilling in my head to practice starts,
I pulled of another (back to back!!) holeshot,
but as we headed up into the woods Taylor Kiser
squeezed by me on an inside line. I ran the first
lap behind Taylor and I was feeling good about
my position. On the second lap Chris Borich passed
me just before the pro pits. As we checked in
for fuel, the Can Am riders, Bithell, and Mcgill,
kept going and began to checkout. As I pitted
I popped my quickfill cap, which tangled in my
killcord and pulled it out shutting off my quad!
My mishap allowed Brian Wolf to get by and when
I got going I was sitting in sixth.
After the pits, Borich, Kiser, Wolf, and myself
rode in a train as we reeled in the Can Am riders.
My quad was working awesome, I really have my
Roll Design/EXIT suspension working awesome, even
with how rough the track was. As we checked in
for the final lap I knew I was running out of
time. I was still sitting sixth, so I began to
apply pressure to Wolf. We hit the 8 mile mark
I was able to get around him and tried frantically
to catch the leaders. Then within the last mile
I caught Chris Borich who was having a hard time
keeping his Suzuki running. I got by him in the
last few turns and crossed the finish in fourth
behind Taylor Kiser!
Sixth in FL, fifth in GA, and fourth in NC, I
was happy to keep improving every race. I headed
back to the pits, and as I was getting changed
some course officials came to me and said we needed
to talk. Unfortunately for Taylor he unintentionally
cut part of the track and they docked him a position,
which put me into third! Even though I missed
the podium it still felt awesome finishing third
for the day!
Finally a weekend off…I plan on racing
the PA State Harescramble next weekend in District
6, then I will be back and ready for Big Buck
in two weeks. See you there.
Big thanks to my crew and all my sponsors for
a great season so far!
Jarrod McClure Sponsors:
Yokley Racing, National Guard,
Coastal Drilling, Kenda, Roll Design, Bowers Motorcycle,
XCBOB.com, Baldwin Motorsports, EXIT shocks, Precision,
TUSK, RPM, IMS-Roll, HMF, MCR, DWT, Scott, K&N,
Motoprotraining, ATVriders.com, KG Clutches, G4
Graphics, Tsubaki, Tireballs, Bell Helmets, SHIFT,
Leumas Enterprise, Quad Tech , Powermadd
www.YokleyRacing.com
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