WORCS ATV Series Round 6

Round 6

From the August, 2009 issue of ATV Rider

This past weekend at Round 6 of the WORCS series was nothing short of awesome with GNCC Superstar Chris Borich making the trek from Pennsylvania to see what the growing west coast series was all about. Held at Straddleline ORV Park, this venue is one of the most unique on the circuit with its tight wooded hills, fun motocross track and the very challenging WORCS X course. The WORCS X course is only featured at this venue and has challenging obstacles such as buried tractor tires, huge logs, a concrete barrier and even a half buried mini van. Early in the week mother nature brought rain down on the course but as race weekend arrived, the skies were dry and made for perfect racing conditions.

As riders lined the start gate for the 2-hour main event, it was easy to see the anticipation for the start in every racers face. Beau Barron was ready to defend newly acquired points lead while defending series champion Josh Frederick was back from an injury earlier in the season. Also back from injury was the #7 of Robbie Mitchell aboard his DATS Racing Kawasaki. The big talk of the weekend was the arrival of GNCC's Chris Borich. The tight and technical terrain that this course offered had many people pegging him as the one to beat in the pro-class.

As the clock struck noon, the starting gate dropped and the #94 Yamaha YFZ 450R of Dustin Nelson grabbed the AtvRiders.com holeshot followed closely by the #5 Polaris of Doug Eichner and #1 Can-Am Josh Frederick. As the pack of riders disappeared into the woods, the crowd in the grandstand area waited in anticipation to see who would emerge in the lead. First back into the motocross section was still Nelson but behind him was the hard charging Frenchman Jeremie Warnia, Doug Eichner and finally Chris Borich started making up ground from a second row start position.

By lap two both Borich and Warnia would slip past Nelson and that is when the Rockstar/Yoshimura/Makita/Suzuki rider would put on the afterburners and not look back as he quickly started to make time on the rest of the field. Warnia did his best to keep the same fast pace that Borich was setting but just couldn't match the technical riding ability of the GNCC points leader. As Dustin Nelson was pushing himself on lap 5 of the race to keep with the leaders, he blew a berm, which sent his YFZ 450R into a waist deep pool of water drastically putting him behind. Nelson struggled for several minutes to get his quad out from the slippery water pit and with help from Robbie Mitchell and local pro racer Derrick Sas, he was finally able to get back into the race but at a severe position deficit.

This error would allow Eichner to slip into third place followed closely by points leader Beau Baron who was being chased down by both Josh Frederick and Jarrod McClure. The top 5 riders would remain the same for most of the grueling 2-hour long main event. Many passes were made in the treacherous WORCS X portion of the course where there was no shortage of backups. With both pro and pro-am classes on the course together, there were almost 40 riders conquering obstacles or becoming one themselves.

In the final laps of the race the WORCS X section would wreak havoc on Eichner as he would get hung up in one of the log sections resulting in the loss of two positions to McClure and Frederick. While here were many battles to be seen over the course of the race, it was prevalent that nobody could match the talent of Chris Borich in the woods of Washington this day as he took the win by almost three minutes over Jeremie Warnia followed by Beau Baron.

On the podium after claiming his first place trophy, Borich had this to say. "This race was pretty fun. I've heard lots of good things about the WORCS series and I wanted to come out here and see what it was all about. The course was really similar to stuff I ride on back home, so I had a pretty good advantage. I had a really good time and would like to come back out and see what one of the desert races is like as well, but I've got a bigger picture to focus on right now." The bigger picture is the points lead he has in the Can-Am GNCC series on the east coast.

Finishing the day in 4th position was Jarrod McClure followed by Josh Frederick who is still not 100% recovered from his injuries but still sits second in the points for a championship run this year. Sixth place for the day went to Doug Eichner, 7th to Beau Baron's MCR teammate Josh Row and 8th to the #12 of DATS Racing Kawasaki's Jon Shafe. Local Pro Timmy Shelman put on a show for the crowd every lap in the WORCS X section as he secured 9th and Team MCR owner Mike Cafro rounded out the top ten.

The next stop for the WORCS ATV series takes the tour to Glen Helen Raceway in San Bernardino, CA where the track is normally fast and temps can be extremely hot which can wreak havoc on both riders and machines. As the series comes closer to the end point gaps are getting tighter making for some epic battles. Make sure to visit www.worcsracing.com and keep checking www.atvrideronline.com for the latest information on the series.