2008 WORCS Racing - Round 1 - SpeedWorld MX - Surprise, AZ

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It seems like yesterday everyone was wrapping up the 2007 season.
Jan.25th kicks off the season opener for Round 1 of the WORCS series in Surprise, Arizona at Speedworld Mx.
Riders were very excited and eager to get the season started !

As we made our journey towards Arizona, we decided to make a mad dash for some new gear and stopped by one of WORCS major sponsors,Rocky Mountain ATV.

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I was fortunate enough to meet some of the staff and get a full tour of the facility.
It was really quite amazing to see how everything operates and how orders are processed.

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Rocky Mountain ATV distributes globally out of a 90,000 square foot facility and supplies everything from riding gear to Suspension.

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I'd like to personally thank all the freindly staff for the tour.

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As we made our journey threw Utah,we spent some time in St. George Utah.

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Threw the canyons, red rock walls and rock formations offered some great scenery.

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The Western portion of the U.S. this year has been hit hard this year with unpredictable weather . Arizona typically would set the season off with a change for warmer racing, but that would not be the case this year.
Riders would be in for a BIG surprise and endure some of the most challenging racing we have ever seen in the WORCS series .

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Fridays practice got off the a very muddy start.

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Many riders opted out for the practice earlier in the afternoon,but as things started to dry out abit, riders for a change to practice under the lights well into the late eveing on the MX portions.

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Friday would also include sound testing and inspection.
Rider would need to meet the 99DB .

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With so many Factory contengencies,sponsorship programs,race teams and Pro purses,the rider participation this year is expected to pull in record numbers.

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Some of the riders get suited up for some of the new products that will soon be available.
Z-broz racing will be trackside in 2008 with some of there new suspention line up being offered for several of the ATV's .
One of the few is the new ARS-FX set up for the Kawasaki.

Pro Am R&D rider Barry Bennett of Bennett racing ran the new set up over the week end.
Mini suspension will also be available soon.

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Whatever the weather,come rain or shine, Pro rider Tim Shelman is always on hand to put a smile on everyones face. :D

Shelman moves up from the #11 to the #8 for 2008.

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Christian Chambers of MotoX Nutrition was offering trackside support .
MotoX Nutrition sponsors such riders as John Natalie,Angela Butler and Timmy Shelman, just to name a few .

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With just a little over 600 entries,the week ends racing was about to begin!
Saturdays race 1 was about to get underway.
Pro Production ,Production A & B ,Stock A&B class followed after the Youth race .

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Pro Production class takes off and its Factory Polaris rider #2 Doug Eichner who would hold a solid lead all the way to the checker .
Eichner also held the fastest lap time in lap 2.

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Several riders would get hung up in the mud bath on the 1st corner- Pro Prod. race would be no different.
New to the WORCS series and Team Green’s newest rider,
#30 Keith Little moved up from 5th position in lap 1 to 2nd position ,and held it to the finish in Pro Production.

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#549 on Suzuki,Beau Baron wraps up the final slot for the #3 on the poduim with under a minute shy behind Little.

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#167 Mike Machado ran one very fast Honda this past wk end...!
Machado holds 2n position threw lap 4,but falls back to the # 4 slot .

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Polaris Team rider #4 John Shafe holds 4th position in lap 1, but falls back to a respectable 5th place finish.

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Prod. A riders are off and running !

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#249 Mike Kelley from Edgewood Wa. leads the pack to the finish line #1 on the podium.
Kelley would also hold the fastest lap time in lap 2.

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#101 Curtis McNitt Jr. from Sublimity, Ore. wraps up the #3 moving up from 5th position in lap 1, to 2nd place in the final lap.

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This race ended up being so muddy, I wasnt able to distinguish too many riders. :o :p

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#860 John Angel moves up from 3rd position in lap one to a 2nd place finish in Prod. A.

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#114 Rob Brown holds 9th position in lap 1,gains 3 positions at mid race, and wraps up the Prod. A in 4th.

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Stock A rider # 209 Lewis Walck from Cortez, Co. starts the race in 3rd position,gains two positions in lap 4 wrapping it up with the #1 slot on the podium.

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#282 Kevin McCullough led the race in lapos1-3, and also held the fastest lap time in lap 2, but would fall back to the #2 slot in lap 4 for .

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#90 Dominic Depalma moves up from the 4th postion in lap 1, to filling the #3 in Stock A.

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In the afternoon Open Pro Class,19 riders are on the line!

Monster Energy / Kawasaki's Josh Creamer made his WORCS racing debut and grabbed the holeshot.
Creamer would lead the entire race and wrap up the open Pro Class with a#1 finish!

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Finishing with only a fracgion of a second behind Creamer,
#94 Dustin Nelson wraps up Open Pro in 2nd.

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#70 Brandon Smith makes up some time gaining 4 positions in lap 2 moving up from 7th position , holding tight to the #3 slot in Open Pro.

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Wrapping it up for the 4th place finish was Temmecula's #5 Levi Marana.

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#7 Robbie Mitchell would fall back from the #3 in lap 1 to a respectable 5th place .

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#42 Lance Smail moves up from the 9th position in lap 1 to 6th.

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#26 Chad Prull moves up from the 11th spot in lap 1 to a 7th place finish in Open Pro.

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#8 Timothy Shelman falls back from 6th position in lap 1 to 8th place finish.

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#84 Justin Zembo moves up from the 14th slot to a 9th place finish in lap 4.

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#18 Bryan Grey moves up 6 positions and moves up to 10th place finish in lap 4 in Open Pro.

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33 riders are in Open A... :eek2:
Open A rider,#101 Curtis McNitt Jr. led the pack the entire race and also held the fastest lap time in lap 2.

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New on Cam-Am for the 2008 season,#49 Dillon Zimmerman finsihes up the race approx. 4 seconds behind McNitt.

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Filling the lap spot on the podium was #180 Myron Whitehorse with a solid 3rd .

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4th place finish went out to #91 Jor Dan Hansen.
Hansen moves up from 6th positon in lap 1 to 4th in lap 3.

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#116 Keith Johnson falls back one position and wraps it up in 5th place, followed by #240 Barry Bennett .
Bennett moved up several positions in lap 2 moving up from 13th to 6th in lap 4.

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Open A rider #62 Pete Garcia moves up from 8th position in lap 1 to a 7th place finish, followed by #238 Ed Dacosta .Dacosta moves up from the 14th postion to 8th in Open A.

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#514 John Rickerd Moves up from the 11th slot to 9th in lap 4.

#104 Tim Gillespie would move up from 16th position in lap 1 ,to a 10th place finish on the final lap.
Due to such muddy conditions, I was not able to see numbers to all the riders.

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The final class was the Womens A class. Not to say these ladies done ANYTHING in last ... These women mean BUSINESS! :macho and 2 of them went on to qualify for the Pro Main on Sunday.
New to the WORCS series this year is Team Polaris rider #88 Angela Butler.

Butler joins the Polaris Team with Shafe and Eichner this year and will most certainly be a the fast female rider to contend with!

I personally am very excited to see the womens A class this year and look forward to seeing a possible Pro Am championship for the 2008 season.:cool:

Butler checks out in the Womens A class and also holds the fastest lap time in lap 3.

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Temmecula's #1w Julie Russell will be another fast female to watch this year.
Russell was last season Womens A Champion.
Russell would wrap up the #2 moving up from 3rd in lap 1 to 2nd on the podium in lap 3.

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#894 Amy Horst drops back from 2nd position to a respectable 3rd ,filling the final spot on the podium in Womens A.

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#53 Lynn Prosser holds tight to the #4.

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5th place went out to #333 Kristen Matlock .

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This is going to wrap up the Pro And A class Coverage.
The Pro Main recap is posted on the homepage.
Due to such soggy, muddy racing conditions on Sunday, I was not able to capture all the riders.Video and Interviews will be up mid week.
Also, make sure and check out the Youth Coverage ,it will be up this wk end.
I hope all the riders got home safely .I dont know about everyone else, but our drive home was very long and very scary!What a crazy wk end!
Lets all do a SUN DANCE for Round 2 . :p

Round 2 will be held in Mequite Nevada Feb. 22-24.

Ill leave the Coverage with a few of the wk. ends other top finishers.

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Utility class rider, #64 Todd Hunter moves up from the 3 position in lap 1 to the #1.

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Open B rider,# Keith Carninalli led a fast race all the way to the checker and also had the fastest lap time in lap 2.

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Oepn B rider,#527 Blake Barnum moves up from the 3rd position in lap 1, to a 2nd place finish .

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#3 goes out to #414 Roy Smith moving up from 4th position in lap 1 .

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#56 Wade Wyman aired it out to the finish on the #1 in the Rhino Mod class.

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#2 Doug Eichner on his decked out Polaris Razr fills the #2 spot.

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Womens C class rider#63 Kali Riggs took the holeshot ,moves up from 3rd position in lap 1 to filling the #2.

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#124 Elsie Walck moves up from the 5th position in lap 1,and fills the final remaining spot on the podium in 3rd.

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See you all in Mesquite!

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Youth Coverage is also up
http://www.exriders.com/vbb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=335957

[KoyukKFX]

Anyone with pictures or reports on other races? Namely, race #5.
thanks!!!
Douggie

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Thats one race I did not get that day.. I took a little time out to grab a bite to eat.

I will try and make sure to rotate out the top finishers like I did on this round of the Amatuer finishers.
Theres so many classes that I could be posting for 2 weeks!:p
Did you do the unclassified?

[LT80]

Just curious..
How many rhino's started the race and how many finished?

BTW,, GREAT PICS!!

[QuadJunkies]

Originally posted by LT80
Just curious..
How many rhino's started the race and how many finished?

BTW,, GREAT PICS!!

There was 14 total,2 DNF's.

[400grl]

Tina - great pics and coverage - thanks so much!! I couldn't be there that weekend, so it's great to see the pics and see my fellow riders doing so well out there!!! :)

[johnnyutah]

Is that the same Lance Smail that once was a pro on a dirtbike from washington? you dont see too many old pro 2 wheelers switching to four

[CannondaleRider]

Yep....same Lance.

[out4sand]

Is that the same Lance Smail that once was a pro on a dirtbike from washington? you dont see too many old pro 2 wheelers switching to four

don't sell him short yet...my understanding is that he will be riding both the dirt bike & quad rounds this year in WORCS. :eek: :D

[johnnyutah]

I'm not saying anything bad about him. I remember him at the monroe areancoss races in the 90's and he was crazy fast on a bike. Didnt he win a world four stroke champonship on a bike when he was sponsored by ktm. Its cool that he is riding both quads and bikes I dont know of any other pro bike guys with his accomplishments that race quads

[QuadJunkies]

Originally posted by johnnyutah
I'm not saying anything bad about him. I remember him at the monroe areancoss races in the 90's and he was crazy fast on a bike. Didnt he win a world four stroke champonship on a bike when he was sponsored by ktm. Its cool that he is riding both quads and bikes I dont know of any other pro bike guys with his accomplishments that race quads
Im thinking an Interview with Smail at future rounds will have to be in order so we all can hear more about what is on his agenda this year. :)

[timmybreakitall]

Lance and I are good freinds. You put him on/in anything with a motor and he flat tears it up, very talented dude, not to mention a great person. Alliecat and his daughter use to race each other about 5yrs ago, we met then.Cool family. The guy has tons of cred in the sport.