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/128372
Round 4 OFF-ROAD ~ athan Woods must have some latent masochistic tendencies that he normally hides from the public. After all, he's one of the few who insist they actually like the extremely rough, energy-sapping, confidence-destroying course that the Rocky Mountain ATV/MC World Off Road Championship Series comes up with on the shores of Lake Havasu. Woods, however, has good reason to give high marks to it: He wins here. For the second year in a row, the Montclair Yamaha/Zip-Ty Racing/Moose-sponsored racer took his YZ250 to a convincing victory at this race, which served as round four of the World Off-Road Championship Series presented by GPR, Montclair Yamaha and Zip-Ty Racing. It also had a record number of participants turn out - I 154 total. After 2 hours, 5 minutes and 40 seconds of racing, Woods proclaimed, "I love Havasu, I like the track. It's really demanding and brutal on the body, but to be honest with you, I'm not that tired right now. I'm really not. I was thinking that when I got off the track, I was going to be just dead. but I feel pretty good." As did runner-up Tim Wiegand. The pro motocrosser returned to the WORCS tour in a big way on his Hahm Motorsports/HMS Capital/Blood Shot CRF250R, working his way up from a poor start to slot himself into second before the halfway mark. He would finish I :23 behind Woods. Suzuki's Mike Kiedrowski, round-one winner, rounded out the podium on his FMF/RG3/0'Neal RM-Z450, finishing 17 seconds behind Wiegand. N 34 APRIL 6,2005 • CYCLE NEWS Rocky Mountain ATV/MC World Off Road Championship Series The Havasu racecourse, held on the Crazy Horse Campgrounds, is a brutal blend of soils. The motocrossstyle portion is made up of mostly hard-pack and littered with rocks and square-edged holes, while much of the surrounding off-road section is primarily soft sand that develops relentless bike-swallowing whoops. Several portions skim along the water's edge. Since there was no MX-spec starting gate, a deadengine start was utilized, via the drop of a banner, something very familiar to desert racers. So, it wasn't a big surprise that the hare and hound guys got off to good starts. Team Green's Destry Abbott, Honda's Kendall Norman, Montclair Yamaha's Russell Pearson and KTM's Kurt Caselli led the charge to the first turn, with Caselli earning the $1 SO holeshot award from Bean Designs. But it was Pearson who quickly took command and went to the front on his Zip-Ty Racing/Pro Circuit/Moose YZ450F, running the fastest lap of the field on the first lap. "The second lap came around, and I was leading it and feeling good and starting to learn my lines, starting to learn the bike," Pearson said. ''All of a sudden, I was riding along an edge, and I have no idea what I hit - still! I wasn't off the course. Next thing I know, I was completely sideways thinking I was going to go down hard because I was going pretty fast." Pearson hung on and tried to ride it out but to no avail. He went down and the motor stalled. "By the time I got it started, I was just drained," he said. After rejoining the fray, Pearson began picking off riders and soon had Wiegand and Kiedrowski in sight before going down again and killing the engine. This