PARTS UNLIMITED OFF-ROAD MOTORCYCLE AND ATV NATIONALS
VOL. 51 ISSUE 16 APRIL 22, 2014 P119
a break, so I put my head down
and tried to really get a bit of a
gap on him, and it worked out."
At the finish, Whibley had less
than 14 seconds over Thomas,
2:07:23 to 2:07:37.
"I think I led every lap but the
one that paid the money!" Thom-
as said. "I tried to get away, but I
couldn't get far enough ahead. I
missed a hill back there; Jimmy
[Jarrett] was stuck in the line and
he pointed at a good line, but I
didn't see it and those guys did
and they got around me. I was
able to get Stew, but I wasn't able
to get back to Paul.
"Second is better than third,
but it was a good day, a good
start to the series."
FMF/KTM Factory Off-Road
Racing Team's Baylor ran into a
problem when he pitted, costing
him some time, and he ended up
pitting a second time after not
seeing the white flag.
"I had a couple little things go
wrong," Baylor said. "I was gas-
sing myself and the quick-fill got
stuck to the stand. I was trying to
jerk it out and just struggling all
day.
"I could catch them in the
woods and just didn't have any-
thing for them in the fields."
Baylor completed 10 laps in
2:08:05 with Adam Bonneur an-
other five minutes back in fourth
and Pro 2 winner Mark Heresco
rounding out the top five overall,
all completing 10 laps.
Pro 2 runner-up Tyson Emery
headed the short list of those do-
ing nine laps, followed 52 seconds
later by Spencer Burke who took
third Pro 2 less than a second
ahead of Cody Bollinger, who was
three seconds ahead of Derek
Spangler. Logan Housenga was
both the first A overall and the Lite
A winner at 10th overall. CN
Briefly...
many ruts," desert specialist Jared
Schlapia said. "From the looks of
it, at first it looked like it was going
to be fast, but that changed once I
hit the trees. I went down a couple
times; the throttle stuck right off the
start so I was pretty much dead last.
There were people going down ev-
erywhere, but it was still trying to find
the right lines." And YZ250-mounted
Schlapia decided line selection was
even more important in the woods
compared to Idaho desert races.
"Back home, you've got to trust your
suspension to hit stuff. Here, you've
got to make sure you hit the right line
or else you're going to get stuck or
go down."
On his chances of winning a record-
extending sixth OMA series cham-
pionship, Paul Whibley said, "It's
going to be, obviously, a really tough
year. I wouldn't say this is going to
be a runaway by any means. It was
a battle right down to the end today;
there's three of us on the podium
here and any one of us could've won
the race. I was just fortunate that I
got away at that mud hole. I'll take
the win, but I don't think it's going to
be an easy season. There's four or
five of us that could win the champi-
onship this year."
(Top left) Nick Fahringer
ran up front until his
gamble on fuel mileage
backfired.
(Above) Lite A winner
Logan Housenga
completed eight laps
faster than any other A
rider.
(Left) Cody Barnes
overalled the Minibike
race on his KX100 and,
not long after, rode the
morning race on his
YZ125, overalling that
by almost two minutes
and topping Lite B in the
process.
