Smail Wins WORCS Opener

Kit Palmer | January 19, 2004

Kawasaki Team Green’s Lance Smail won the opening round of the World Off-Road Championship Series in Mesquite, Nevada, yesterday. After passing Montclair Yamaha/Zip-Ty Racing/Yoshimura’s Nathan Woods early in the first lap, Smail opened up about a minute lead, which he held to the end of the two-hour race.

KTM’s Kurt Caselli put on a charge late in the race and actually whittled down Smail’s lead to about 30 seconds, but that would be as close as Caselli could get.

Third place went to Smail’s teammate Destry Abbott, who worked his way up after a so-so start.

After nailing the holeshot and then getting stuck in a mud section, Woods ended up fourth, comfortably ahead Steve Hatch on the Throttlehead.com/Kawasaki Team Green-backed KX250.

Montclair Yamaha/Zip-Ty Racing/Yoshimura’s Ty Davis had a bad start towards defending his number-one plate. Davis had worked his way up to second at one point, but was running third when his chain came off and wadded up against the engine cases of his YZ250. He was officially credited with 50th overall.

Motocrosser Bobby Bonds, now a Kawasaki Team Green rider, was a front-runner for much of the race until running out of gas on his KX250. Bonds intends on finishing out the WORCS series, as well as running selected outdoor National motocrosses.

Results:

PRO/SEMI-PRO O/A: 1. Lance Smail (Kaw); 2. Kurt Caselli (KTM); 3. Destry Abbott (Kaw); 4. Nathan Woods (Yam); 5. Steve Hatch (Kaw); 6. Mark Tilley (Hon); 7. Joey Lanza (KTM); 8. Ricky Dietrich (Kaw); 9. Kevin Bailey (KTM); 10. Clint Braun (KTM); 11. David Pearson (Kaw); 12. Ben Hale (Kaw); 13. Brenden Ritzman (Yam); 14. Patrick Garrahan (KTM); 15. Russell Pearson (Yam); 16. Kendal Norman (Hon); 17. Wes Macmillan (Hon); 18. Jon Seehorn (Suz); 19. Dax Billings (Hon); 20. Jeremy Ferro (Kaw).