Round 7
Terror and triumph
In Mid-September the WORCS ATV series rolled into Southern California for round seven of the eight race series, and sweltering temperatures came right along with it. The location for this venue was Glen Helen Raceway in Devore, CA that is considered one of the premier locations for both MX and Off-Road racing, and the course that was laid out for this weekend lived up to its reputation. A full weekend of racing left an extremely rough course for the pro riders to combat for their two-hour race that took place in the middle of the day where temperatures were well over 100 degrees.
Not only did this round see extreme temperatures, but there were new faces throughout the pits as well. Just before the weekends race, the Motoworks/Can-Am had just signed on John Natalie and Chad Wienen for the 2010 ATV MX season and John decided that he wanted to give WORCS racing a go much like Chris Borich in the previous round. Keith Little also made and appearance on his Kawasaki KFX 450R with his longtime mechanic Scott Butler. With new competition at the track, the spectators for this race were sure to see some fierce racing action.
Before any of the racing action ever went down, there was a grave incident that involved long time WORCS pro racer and past champion Doug Eichner. In a Friday practice session, he was involved in a serious crash with John Natalie that resulted in a broken arm, lacerated liver, broken ribs and punctured lung. This incident sent Eichner to the hospital for several days while Natalie also went to be treated for broken ribs suffered in the accident. While Eichner was out, Natalie still opted to ride for Sundays race.
As the gate dropped and all of the pro riders put the hammer down on their machines, it was Dustin Nelson that took the holeshot coming out of the infamous Talladega turn followed closely by the #62 of Jeremie Warnia. Shortly after leaving the infield of the course Warnia would make a pass on Nelson for the lead and then turned on the afterburners. Warnia rode like a machine that kept on pushing through the extreme heat and rough terrain and would never look back from that point as he took the win for the day over thirty seconds ahead of second place finisher Beau Baron. While the racing was fast up front, behind is were all of the action was taking place and some of the racers were furious.
With the points battle for the championship being so close there was rumor of "team tactics" coming into play as both Dustin Nelson and Beau Baron had individual run-ins with Motoworks/Can-Am's John Natalie during the 2 hour long race. It was easy to see that tempers were raging but that only made them ride harder resulting in better finishes for the day. After all was said and done, Warnia stood atop the podium followed by Baron and his Motoworks/Can-Am teammate Josh Frederick rounding out the top three. Nelson would finish his day aboard his Yamaha YFZ 450R in fourth and John Natalie would round out the top five, even with broken ribs from Fridays incident.
Josh Row would finish in sixth for the day aboard his MCR Honda TRX 450R followed by DATS Racing teammates John Shafe and Robbie Mitchell who placed seventh and eighth respectively. Ninth place went to Ryan Piplic aboard his Kawasaki KFX 450R and to complete the top 10 was Justin Waters aboard his Yamaha. With one round left in the series, MCR's Beau Baron holds the lead with 21 points over Josh Frederick who only has one point difference from his teammate Jeremie Warnia. Fourth through sixth places are only separated by 5 points and seventh through twelfth place are separated by a mere ten points.