Woods Clinches WORCS Title

Shan Moore | October 31, 2005

Nathan Woods wrapped up the 2005 World Off-Road Championship title yesterday with his fifth win of the year at the Oak Hill MX Park in Decatur, Texas. Despite one more round left on the Rocky Mountain ATV/MC WORCS schedule, the Montclair Yamaha/Tip-Ty Racing-backed rider clinched his second WORCS title with room to spare, just like he did last year.

“I didn’t care about winning, I just wanted to lock the championship up,” Woods said. “But I was in a position to win and I just made it happen. I did it here last year and I’m glad to do it here again.”

Woods put his Yamaha YZ450F into the lead at the halfway point of lap one and never looked back. Even newly crowned GNCC champ Juha Salminen couldn’t match the pace that Woods was setting and, with two laps remaining, yielded his position to his KTM teammate Kurt Caselli. But Caselli, who was the only person left with a mathematical chance of dethroning Woods, ran out of gas on the final lap and then passed out from exhaustion while attempting to push the bike to the finish. After being treated, Caselli quickly recovered but was visibly disappointed. He was credited with 13th place.

“It sucks that I didn’t even get to finish and had to get an IV,” Caselli said. “But Nathan did what he had to do to win the championship, and he rode really well, so congrats to him; he had a good year. I’ll just do what I can to get ready for next year.”

After working his way up from a so-so, start, Suzuki’s Mike Kiedrowski finished third on his FMF/Dunlop/O’Neal RM-Z450. Montclair Yamaha/Zip-Ty Racing/Moose teammates Ty Davis and Russ Pearson rounded out the top five, respectively.

Shan Moore | Contributing Editor

Moore covers all facets of off-road racing for Cycle News – from AMA Supercross and Motocross to GNCC and National Hare Scrambles events.