Woodford Masters the Moose Run
| June 7, 2004
Kawasaki Team Green’s Chuck Woodford won the infamous Moose Run, round three of the Off-Road Motorcycle and ATV (OMA) Nationals. Woodford shared the lead with Yamaha rider Jimmy Jarret for the first five laps of the grueling seven-lap race, which has been dubbed the “toughest off-road race in America,” before breaking away and winning with a time of four hours, 15 minutes and 59 seconds. Woodford and Jarrett took turns leading before Woodford put four-and-a-half minutes on Jarrett during the last two laps.
Woodford said, ” I just couldn’t shake Jarrett, every time I’d start to pull away I’d do something dumb and endo or something. This is not the kind of race that you want to make a lot of mistakes because you just plain wear yourself out just picking yourself up over and over. Eventually I crashed hard enough that I bent my rear brake pedal out, and I had to stop and bend it back. From there, I knew I had to settle down or I’d end up taking myself out.”
Jarret said, “Woodford and I probably broke away too fast in the beginning. We both ended up making a lot of mistakes and I just wore myself out. When he stopped to fix his brake that was the last time I had the lead. I ended up hitting a tree pretty hard and just had to back down and let Chuck go.”
Rounding out the top five were Cole Calkins (Kaw), Shane Watts (KTM) and Nathan Kanney (Yam.)
