Defending series champion Nathan Woods ended his winless drought by scoring his fourth win of the season in the Rocky Mountain ATV/MC World Off-Road Championship Series.
The Montclair Yamaha/Zip-Ty Racing/Moose YZ450F-mounted racer dominated round nine, presented by DH1 Racing and Zip-Ty Racing, at Honey Lake MX Park near Milford, California, yesterday, with Suzuki’s Mike Kiedrowski the runner-up. Kiedrowski took the checkered flag some 55 seconds behind Woods, with privateer Bobby Garrison finishing third on his Big Valley Honda CRF450R, another 70 seconds back.
KTM’s Kurt Caselli saw his quest for a three-peat vanish after taking a seventh-place finish. The KTM star was hampered by tendonitis that also affected the last few days of his ISDE in Slovakia the week before, and though he gated well on his 250 MXC, he couldn’t run that pace for the full two hours.
“Today, I was on a mission,” Woods said. “Yesterday in practice, on our parade deal, I felt that I was going to win the race. I felt good, my bikes work good, everything about it was just going my way. When that happens, it’s great. It doesn’t happen that way all the time.”
Woods’ teammate Ty Davis got the holeshot with Woods tucking in behind and Caselli a close third off the start. Before long, though, Woods broke past Davis, who would end up fourth, and rode the rest of the way untouched, though he did crash on the final lap. Behind him, both Kiedrowski and Garrison rode steady races to move up in the pack to secure their finishing positions. Russell Pearson, the third member of the Montclair Yamaha team, rounded out the top five after stopping to assist a fallen Bobby Bonds.
Jussi Vehvilainen took sixth on his Team Green KX250 in his first-ever off-road race. The MX GP veteran, most recently of the CAS Honda team out of Great Britain, is interested in following the lead of fellow Finn Juha Salminen and racing in the U.S. next year.
