| Florida
Trail Riders
ATV Harescramble Series
Sweetwater, FL
February 17, 2007 |
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Taylor Kiser Dominates the
Florida Competition
Sweetwater, FL - With the GNCC season
looming in just a few weeks usually there are quite
a few riders that make their way to the sunny state
of Florida as a warm-up. After reviewing the list of
entrants for the Sweetwater Harescramble, not a single
name came from out of the state of Florida. However,
local favorite, Taylor Kiser mounted his Yamaha YFZ450
once again as he has been training hard over the winter
preparing for the GNCC season opener in Vero Beach.
During the winter months, Florida offers several ATV
Harescramble and Quad scramble series, and Taylor has
been at all of them.
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#31
Taylor Kiser Grabbing the Holeshot |
With several rows of ATVs on the line, Taylor Kiser
grabbed the Holeshot in the AA Class and never looked
back as he held the lead for the duration of the race.
Chuck Piper finished second on the AA class after a
hard fought battle with Mike Ansbaugh who finished in
the third position.
The real story unfolded after all of the rows had started
and all of the spectators were strolling off to their
favorite viewpoints a large roar of four stroke filled
the start air, and a pair of late riders ripped out
on the course. As the two mystery riders made their
way around the course on their first lap. These two
riders were setting a pace that seemed much quicker
than the rest of the field. As the two riders flew,
I saw the Bling Star front bumpers and the East Coast
Honda graphics running one right after the other. Chris
Borich and John Natalie Jr were the mystery riders,
and they were on the gas after starting the race nearly
13 minutes behind Taylor Kiser on the AA starting row.
Chris held a strong pace for the entire race, and cut
the gap nearly in half to 7 minutes on Taylor in the
lead even though Borich had to get by every class in
the field. John Natalie kept pace with Chris for almost
two laps, but he couldn’t keep the furious woods
pace in the deep sand whoops of Zolfo Springs as he
began to fade behind Borich. Does this mean we will
see more of John at the GNCC’s this year? Or is
John just using this as training for the upcoming ATVA
MX Nationals that are also starting in the next few
weeks? Time will tell.
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| #2
Chris Borich |
#13
John Natalie Jr |
Open A riders had to spend the day chasing Domingo Fuentes
as he went on to claim the win. Evan Fraker took the second
position followed by Carey Atkinson. Ben Dancy took the
win for the Open B racers followed by Alan Fischer and
James Benton. In the B 0-400 division Gerry LaJeunesse
and Michael Downs Junior had a close battle and even switched
places a few times. In the end, LaJeunesse took the win.
James Cibella Sr managed to get his quad across the finish
line for the final spot in the top three. There was a
pretty small turn out for the Womens class, but rider
Kim Wagner aboard her Yamaha confessed that she has had
some good finishes this year at the FTR events and she
was planning on going to the Vero Beach GNCC. Her confidence
was uplifting and carried her to a first place finish
ahead of Jamie Cook.
Vet Quad class had Marc Taylor taking the win followed
by Brian Morris in second and Michael Taylor in third
in a pretty spread out race. In one of the two C Classes
was pretty similar in being spaced apart without a lot
of position changes during the race action. C 0-400
had Shaun Gorsky take the win followed by Bill Mullinax
in second and Aaron Blondek crossing for the third place
finish. Open C is the largest class of the series, and
had quite a bit of excitement off the start as a few
of the riders decided to roll their quads in the dust
that consumed the heard of quads. Caught up in the melee
was Derrick Stratton on his Polaris. He went from the
lead to the back of the pack of 15 riders. Derrick raced
hard but came up short of the top three in the fifth
position earning him the hard charger of the day. He
was also the top finisher of the day on a Polaris. Dakota
Smith won the Open C by nearly four minutes. The real
race of the class was for second and third between Zack
Klein and Ryan Todd. They finished the race only seven
seconds apart and were pushing each other at every opportunity.
Zack did take second and Ryan third. Good Races riders.
Last year saw more Northern riders showing up in Florida
preparing for the start of quite a few National series.
With one more Florida races in Gainesville this coming
weekend, I expect to see more riders getting that last
minute fix with out the pressures of the Nationals.
There is an OHV park just North of the Tampa area off
of I-75 called Croom that has miles and miles of sand
whoops and conditions that every rider will face at
Vero Beach. From what I hear, there are quite a few
riders that have set up camp there and are training
every day. I guess that two laps into the Tritan GNCC
we will see who has been training and who hasn’t.
See you at the races………………….
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