-Road Championship Series
Rookie pro Ricky Dietrich (14) was surprised to find himself in the lead on the
st lap. Mark Tilley (13) gives chase.
N
athan Woods had three
weeks to stew over his
third-place finish in the
opening round of the
Rocky Mountain ATV/MC
World Off-Road Championship Series. As
the defending series champion, he'd gotten used to winning, so anything less than
that didn't satisfy him. Citing lack of
preparation of both bike and body, he
vowed to correct both by the time round
two rolled around. While such promises
made are often just words, Woods made
good on his plan.
"I went home, and I trained my butt
off," the Montclair Yamaha/Zip-Ty Racing!
Moose-sponsored YZ450F Woods said. "I
was really disappointed in my third-place
finish [in Phoenix], which I probably
shouldn't have been - all my teammates
and everybody said that I did great - but
once you win a couple races, you want to
50
just keep winning. That's how I am. I'm
really determined, and I want to win
another championship, but first thing's
first: Go race by race."
Despite a number of leaders and even
more lead changes during the course of
the two-hour race at the Mesquite
MotoX Park, Woods ended up with the
lead when it counted most and improved
upon his third in Phoenix to win in
Mesquite, thus taking the series points
lead, as well.
Second went to KTM's Kurt Caselli,
who experienced a race full of drama. It
began with him crashing on the first lap
with motocrosser Tim Weigand, then
restarting near the back. He next sliced
through the pack until he wrested the lead
from Woods a few laps from the end. After
doing so, however, he dove into a mudhole
and got stuck, letting Woods retake the
lead. While Caselli tried gamely to run
MARCH 2, 2005 • CYCLE NEWS
