Pro Quads Stadium Race Round 2- Anaheim, CA

[Admin]

Round #2 of the Pro Quads Series is taking place today on the West Coast in "Sunny" California. The thousands of spectators that showed up last week for the Motorcycle Supercross would have called California anything but sunny with torrential downpours that turned the race more into a GNCC race.

Fortunately, this weekend, the California sun is back for some Stadium ATV racing. The turnout to this is event is one of the best ever with over 40 Pro riders signing up to compete, but only 20 will make it to the Main Event. Many riders were quickly eliminated when the discovered that the track this year is far from a TT style track. Clear Channel has stepped it up and are working to convert this series into a true indoor supercross style racing series. The track has numerous big air jumps with some very technical rhythm sections that quickly separate the Pros from the amateurs. If the riders weren’t able to clear all the jumps, Clear Channel refunded their entry fees and kindly gave them admission tickets to watch the event to prevent the risk of riders being injured.

Partial list of Riders:
Doug Gust
John Natalie Jr.
Jeremiah Jones
Tim Farr
Keith Little
Kory Ellis
Sklyer Stewart
Nic Grunland
Darrell Patton
Jeremy Schell
Danny Ragon
Dustin Nelson
Jimmy Robertson
Jeremy Lawson
Ricky Nickel – In the Hospital after a wreck :(
Josh Frederick
Sage Baker
Brandon Smith
Cody Smith

Tim Farr & John Natalie Jr during the Riders Meeting.

[Admin]

Jeremiah Jones is making his third public race appearance on his Suzuki Z400. He has spent most of the his practice time taking a few laps and heading back to the pits for some suspension adjustments.

[Admin]

John Natalie Jr. is once again looking flawless on his East Coast ATV Honda 450R. John has spent all winter training to come out on top this season, and with his wins at the ATV Olympics and Round #1 of the Pro Quads Series things are looking good for John. Tonight will be the true test with a Doug Gust, Jermiah Jones, and other Top Pro riders being added to the list of competitors.

[Admin]

Check out this awesome photo by Roy Bloodworth of John Natalie Jr doing a look over at Tim Farr as they catch some air side by side.

[Fred55]

Do you have a full picture of the track?

[Admin]

Tim Farr and Mark Baldwin have also been extremely busy dialing in his 450R suspension for the technical track. The jump intensity of the track I believe took many riders by surprise, but I believe this will attract even more fans to these events, and hopefully the quads alone will have their own series seperate of the Monster Trucks in the Future.

The Heat Races will begin shortly, and I will keep you posted on the results after each Heat.

[Admin]

The split the riders up into 5 Heat Races and the top 3 from each Heat goes on to the Main. The official results haven't been posted yet, but unofficially, the following riders have advanced from each Heat. The Last Chance Qualifier will be held shortly and I will post all the qualifiers once the results are posted.

Heat 1
John Natalie Jr
Jeremiah Jones

Heat 2
Tim Farr
Sklyer Stewart

Heat 3
Keith Little
Dustin Nelson

Heat 4
Kory Ellis
Cody Smith
Darrell Patton

Heat 5
Doug Gust
Jeremy Schell

[400grl]

Harlen - this is great!!:) I can't believe you have pics already!!

I know one of our race buddies crashed hard in the whoops and is in surgery right now with a partially punctured lung, some broken ribs and we aren't sure what else (Ricky Nickel).......I hope the rest of the night is injury free......I hate to see any racer go down!

Keep up the updates!!! :)

[Admin]

The final two heat race lineups before the main event has been determined, and the The top 5 from each Heat will start on the 1st Row in the 20 Rider Main Event.


Heat 1 Lineup
Kory Ellis
Tim Farr
Doug Gust
Jermiah Jones
Dustin Nelson
Darrell Patton
Nic Granlund
Josh Frederick
Tyson Lever
Sage Baker

Heat 2 Lineup
John Natalie Jr
Keith Little
Cody Smith
Sklyer Stewart
Jeremy Schell
Jimmy Robinson
Cyle Chislock
Brock Lyons
Robert McClure
Jeremy Lawson

[Harvey]

I'd hate to be in heat1!

[khj]

Great job on live (sorta) coverage !!! Keep it coming !!!

heat #2 has several good riders also

[Admin]

I just received several photos of the Track :D


Check out the lip and height of that Double:eek:

[Admin]

This jump that is circle in red is the one that sent Ricky Nickel to the hospital :(. It is sad to hear about anyone getting seriously hurt. Also, it would have been nice to have seen Pat Brown out here again this year, but he is still recoverying from a serious cut in his leg at the Olympics, so please keep Pat & Ricky in your thoughts.

I heard that Pat Brown should be healed up by Glen Helen, so lets keep our fingers crossed for him.

[Admin]

Lonestar Racing's Keith Little looks focused.

[Admin]

It is great to see Suzuki supporting Jeremy Lawson. He hasn't had the best showing in his Pro Quad Debut, with a last place start, but I could imagine the nerves he must be experiencing racing against some of the Best riders in ATV Racing History.

[Admin]

Golden West Cycle's Darrell Patton wrecked at Houston, TX in the Whoops section, and he thought he broke his finger. Luckily, everything was alright, and he is back in action.

[Admin]

Many people aren't familiar with the name Dustin Nelson, but I think after this season more people will know him by name. He is an extremely fast motorcycle rider, and he has only recently switched his focus to ATV racing. I heard rumors he will be racing in the GNC MX Series this year, and I wouldn't be surprised to see him finish in the Top 5 after seeing him ride last year at Glen Helen during the ITP Quadcross.

[Admin]

Alba Action, Jeremy Schell has settled right into his Yamaha, and he is looking forward to running the GNC MX Series again with his good friend and team mate Kory Ellis.

It is great to see Alba Action supporting several top riders in the GNC, GNCC, and BITD Series. Alba's Color for 2005 will be Black,Silver, and Yellow, so they should be fairly easy to pick out at the track.

[Harvey]

Dou you have how they placed in the heats, other than 1st place

[Admin]

Originally posted by Harvey
Dou you have how they placed in the heats, other than 1st place

Actually, the Heat Races listed was just the lineup and not the finishes.

Kory Ellis won Heat 1 and John Natalie Jr won Heat 2. Another injury reported:( Keith Little wrecked and was run over by another rider and received an injury to his head/face. He was up walking around afterwords, but he was bleeding, and I hope to have more details shortly.

[Harvey]

Congratulations to Kory/Yamaha on the win tonight!!!!!!@!@!!

[250rpilot]

sounds like the combo of the huge jumps and everyone trying to go extra big looking for factory support is taking its toll on the racers. i think maybe some of them need to back it off a little bit:confused:

[Admin]

Jeremiah Jones jumped the start and was sent to the back row for the restart, and Kory Ellis got out to an early lead with Jeremy Schell running in 2nd Place for most of the race. John Natalie Jr was hit early in the race by another rider and thrown off his machine, which sent him a lap down, but he quickly remounted and started passing riders and making up ground. Jeremy Lawson went down early in the race and didn't return.

Kory Ellis went on to win the race with Doug Gust & Dustin Nelson finishing behind him after both of them passed Jeremy Schell on the Last lap when he got tied up with lapped traffic. Jeremiah Jones was able to work his up to 5th Place after starting on the second row and Sklyer Stewart finished in 6th place.

The Complete Official results will be posted tomorrow along with a complate race report in the near future.

This race coverage was made possible by Roy Bloodworth. Thanks

[wolf91]

If I'm not mistaken, Dustin Nelson use to race Open A at the nationals back in 2001. If it's the same one, he also use to work for Denton Racing.

[khj]

Dustin Nelson is a test rider for yamaha who use to do very well racing dirt bikes and has made the switch over to quads. And he is very fast and getting better all the time.

Originally posted by Admin


Kory Ellis won Heat 1 and John Natalie Jr won Heat 2. Another injury reported:( Keith Little wrecked and was run over by another rider and received an injury to his head/face. He was up walking around afterwords, but he was bleeding, and I hope to have more details shortly.

Keith Little rushed to the hospital with a deep laceration in his forehead. He is recovering fine.

[hsr]

Are they running on basically the same track that the supercross bike guys ran on last weekend? It looks somewhat similar, just watered down a bit. I think this is great, it looks a lot more professional for the pro quads, and not so much as a half time show for the monster trucks on a sort of half-*** TT track.

[lwrider20]

ya i think it is good that they are trying to make it go big but a lot of guys are getting hurt in the process. i dont think people need to get hurt in order to draw fans and from what i heard is that even some of the pros were having trouble with the track. shoot look how big the mickey thompson series were and those tracks werent nothing big.

[Admin]

Originally posted by lwrider20
ya i think it is good that they are trying to make it go big but a lot of guys are getting hurt in the process. i dont think people need to get hurt in order to draw fans and from what i heard is that even some of the pros were having trouble with the track. shoot look how big the mickey thompson series were and those tracks werent nothing big.

I must agree with you that it is not cool seeing riders getting hurt. It is a shame what happened to Ricky Nickle's and Keith Little. I think they will have to find the right combination for the fans and riders, but I think they have good intentions because the man behind the scenes is Jim White and he knows from experience what racing is all about.

[hsr]

I also agree that seeing the riders getting busted up is not good. And there is no way (yet) that the pro quads are capable of doing some of the jump combos both fastly and safely that the bike guys are doing on a full blown supercross track. Reason being that pro quad racing hasn't had as much exposure to supercross as they have had to motocross, but things are definatly headed in the right direction.

[Harvey]

I also think that some of the riders that enter aren't actualy Pro's and are testing their wings.

[amra20]

We where at san deigo last year and that was a neat track yea it was more of a tt track but it was fast . I just hope that they dont turn this into a program like the Quad wars or the Ice races to where they have thier riders that are in the show and no local people will be able to run in front of thier home crowd.

[Admin]

Originally posted by amra20
We where at san deigo last year and that was a neat track yea it was more of a tt track but it was fast . I just hope that they dont turn this into a program like the Quad wars or the Ice races to where they have thier riders that are in the show and no local people will be able to run in front of thier home crowd.

The Pro Quads Series is not a SHOW. It is a PRO Race and nothing more or less. It is not an outlaw race for anyone that can ride an ATV to go out and compete against the best in the industry.

The difficultly level has been raised to seperate the Amateurs from the Pros. This last track was too unforgiving though, and I contacted Clear Channel about the track, and they will have the jump issue corrected at future rounds because they don't won't to see anyone getting hurt either, but this still will not prevent injuries.

Eventually the Pro Quads Series will be very similar to a Supercross Event where all registered Pro Riders can signed up an attempt to qualify for the Main Event, but it is open to C Riders because the course is designed only for the most advanced riders.

This is exciting news for the ATV Industry and I hope everyones is supportive of the new format and the future of the Pro Quads Events.