Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/128330
Third-pl ace finis he r Kurt Caselli use d th e motocross method to get over these two logs. Racing/Maxxis.backed KX250 pilot . After the first lap around the six-mile racecourse, Bonds trailed the leader by 45 seconds and was ho lding down fourth place behind some very respectable and proven off-roaders: front-man Ty Davis , ISDE specialist Kurt Caselli , and series points le ade r Nathan Woods. But that didn't seem to create any anxiety for Bonds, who, over the next two hours, reeled in all of them and erased any remaining doubt someone might've had about his off-road riding abilities. " It makes me feel great," Bonds said of w inning two of the tightest races yet. " I thought it would take me about a year to get fully comfortable with the off-road, but it's taken me about half that time. I want to be known as an off-road guy; I definitely want to make a career out of it." Dav is, on the Montclair Yamaha/Zip-Ty Racing YZ250, who led most of the race (t he first seven of 12 laps) , ended up finishing second, about 30 seconds be hind Nathan Woods (7) leads Robert Naughton (51 Jason McCormick , ~ and Destry Abbott (121 into the tum. Woods saw his three-race win streak come to a n end. Bonds' Kawasaki, wh ile Caselli ended up third after mounting a late-race push that carried him right up to Davis' rear fender. But an unco o pe rative ignit io n in his KTM 250 SX prevented him fro m going in for the kill. especially after Davis stepped it up on the last lap. Davis finished out the race 19 seconds ahead of Caselli, who was last year's top finishing American rider at the ISDE. Woods, aboard the only four-stroke (YZ450F) to finish inside the top seven, ended up a distant fourth , while fo rme r National Hare & Hound Champion Destry Abbott, on a KX250. rounded out the top five overall. As mentioned, the longview course was quite diverse with much emphasis on "o ff-ro ad." Only a few turns of the facility's main motocross track were used at a time before t he course led the ride rs back out into the woods. The weather played a big factor in th is one, too. light but steady rain Saturday night made the already dam p - but nearly perfect - course a swamp for Sunday morning's amateur racers, w ho left presents for the Pros ruts! lots of them, some quite deep - one was so deep that it nearly came up to the bikes' seats. The Pros did get lucky in t hat t he rain stopped fo r good by their race, and the sun popped out, drying out the course significantly. But the first few laps were sloppy and murder on goggles. But Bonds quickly adapted to the muddy conditions and the bike-swallowing ruts. " I never ride the mud," Bonds said . " But I figured it out. I lea rned a little bit fro m the Nationals (MX) that you have to be pat ient. I basically took it easy t he first few laps and then charged." He settled into fourth off the start and eventually got aro und Woods. Once in third. Bonds continued to move forward and eventually caught Caselli, passing the KTM rider on the fifth lap. From there, he went into aggressive mode and ate up 26 secon ds on Davis, clos ing to w ithin striking distance of the leader by the eighth lap. "Th e lap before, I had to pit [for gas] and rode as hard as I cou ld to get o n Davis," Bonds said, "be ca use I wanted to pass him while he pitted on the next lap." Briefly... Washington's own Jason McCo rm ick gave the Longview WORCS a shot. The long-time National MX Series regular rode the same KTM that Ryan Hughes rode earlier this year in the GNCC Series. McCormick led much of the 2S0cc Pro race on Saturday but ended up finishing second behind Ty Davis. In Sunday's Pro race, McCormick went down with Abbott in the third turn and switched to come-fr ombehind mode . McCormick was making good headway until twisting his knee and pulling off on the sixth lap while running seventh. KTM rider Bryc e Olson showed up at the Longviewrace with a cast on hisarm. Olson. who has been ridingexceptionally well as of late, broke the navicular bone in his wrist at the previous WORCS round at Honey Lake. O lson says he now has a screw in the wrist and expects the cast to be replaced by a splint in a few days. He's hoping to be back on the bike again rather soon. Local motocross and off-road hero Lance Smail came out to spectate and to provide some color commentary alongside regular WORCS track announcer Dave Brosiusfor Sunday's Pro race. Smail, who won the openingWORCS race in Mesquite, Nevada, earlier in the year, is still healing from knee surgery.Smail says the knee is feeling good and the recovery is goingalong right on schedule. Speaking of knee injuries, the word out of the KTM pits is that five-time AMANational Enduro Champion Mike Lafferty got the okay from his doctor to start riding again. Lafferty had knee surgery in March. Even though the WOR eS se ries has begun its "summer break," you can stillget your WORCS fix when Fox Sports Net airs a one -hour feature on the WORCS Series on its High Octane show. The program will run down the first eight rounds of the series. It looks as though the show will air around the end of July . National Hare & Hound Series points leader Destry Abbott was runningin second place behind Ty Davis in Saturday's 2S0cc Pro race when his KX2S0 coasted to a stop a few hundred yards from the finish line. Abbott ran over to the pits, grabbed a gas can and returned to his bike. He ended up seventh. For such a muddy race, it seems a little odd that the top three riders all hail from very dry regions of California - Maricopa (Bonds), Hesperia (Davis) and Palmdale (Caselli), the latter two full-on desert communities. ':A ctually I seem to do pretty , good in the mud," Caselli joked. "It' s the ruts and the trees that I suck at." www.cyclen ews.com CYC LE NEWS • JUNE 30, 2004 39