As Michael Houston rounded the turn in 6th place, Bill spun his YFZ450 around and headed back to his pits for another pair of goggles with Houston quickly picking up a spot and moving back into the top 5.
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As Michael Houston rounded the turn in 6th place, Bill spun his YFZ450 around and headed back to his pits for another pair of goggles with Houston quickly picking up a spot and moving back into the top 5.
With Ballance getting a fresh pair of goggles, Bryan Baker moved into 6th place as Ballance dropped back to 7th place
Santo Derisi maintained the 8th spot with Lagzdins moving right in behind him. Todd Knippenberg worked his way up from 16th to 10th while Thomas Barrett did the reverse and slid from 10th to 16th.
The fourth lap would play havoc on several of the front runners as Chris Jenks lead and run at another Overall win in back to back races would come to an end when he ran into a bottle neck of riders stuck on the railroad tracks, so he decided to drop into the mud and try to get around to avoid waiting, which resulting in him finding himself buried in the marsh
Bryan Cook with some luck on his side was able to make his way through jammed up section without becoming stuck, which allowed him to jump into the Overall lead.
William Yokley would be the next riders to find his race day ended after running in the top five the entire race when his transmission let go on his Suzuki which left him sitting on the course and out of the race.
As track conditions deteriorated in sections and lapped traffic became an issue, many of the top runners began to run into problems, but Bill Ballance used his years of experience to make the right decisions and amazingly worked his way back up from 7th and into 2nd place behind Byran Cook, but with only one lap to go, Ballance would need Cook to make a major mistake to catch him as Cook had almost a two minute lead over Ballance.
Michael Houston was third place and less than 20 seconds behind Ballance as he was only one lap away from the finish line and first podium appearance.
Check out he depth of these ruts from the earlier photo to now as the powdery soil quickly gave way.
Coming on strong behind him was Bryan Baker aboard his K&K ATV Honda, and he also was looking for his return to the podium for the first time in years, which I believe was at the Ironman.
With the dry conditions and lack of rain sections of the mx track became really dusty near the end of the race.
Brandon Ballance dropped back 5th place, but remained within striking distance of both Houston and Baker on the last lap.
Andy Lagzdins caught up to Santo Derisi in the third lap and stayed within a few seconds of each other in to the final lap of the race with Derisi leading the way, but early in fifth lap, Lagzdins made his move and passed Derisi taken over the 6th spot with Derisi remaining close behind.