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WORCS ATV Series
Round #1 - Speed World
January 27-28, 2007 |
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WORCS Pro ATV Race Report
- Continued
On Saturday, Doug Eichner, won the Pro Production class
with Josh Frederick taking the win in Open Pro, which
slated the pair for the first two gate picks in Sunday’s
Pro Race with the pair staging on opposite sides of
the gate house. In usual fashion, Eichner’s Duncan
Racing 450R grabbed the Holeshot followed by Jeremy
Schell and Robbie Mitchell. Coming out of turn two,
nearly a third of the field piled up, which involved
Jeremy Schell and Josh Frederick.
By the end of the first lap, Eichner held a 10 second
lead over Robbie Mitchell and Levi Marana, but the trio
would miss the turn into the pits due to a missing course
marker, which left course officials scrambling to redirect
the rest of the class, but they weren’t in time
as the next group went through the pits, which forced
Sean Reddish to make the call to restart the race, which
left racers and pit crews scrambling to the starting
gate for a restart in less than 10 minutes. For those
riders caught up in the first start pileup it was a
huge relief and especially for Jonathan Shafe since
he oil drain plug fell out during the first race, which
left him scrambling for a replacement and oil before
the restart.
Unlike the first start, the restart for both the Pro
and Pro Am was uneventful with Doug Eichner once again
grabbing the Holeshot with Jeremy Schell and Josh Frederick
in hot pursuit followed by Robbie Mitchell and John
Shafe , which remained the running order throughout
the first lap.
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| #1
Doug Eichner & #2 Josh Frederick battling
for the lead |
Josh Frederick turned up the heat in the second lap
recording the fastest lap time of the race with a 10:39,
and Schell cleared his way to move into second place
and begin his battle with Eichner for the lead. For
the next five laps, Frederick shadowed Eichner as they
blitzed around the course in unison building a minute
lead over Schell in third place with Shafe moving into
fourth place followed by Marana, and Mitchell would
begin to fade back to 11th place after a great start.
In the seventh lap, Frederick was looking to make his
move on the motocross track before exiting back to the
desert when he collided into the rear of Eichner, which
locked up their ATVs. They both jumped off their ATVs
to separate their machines with Frederick apologizing
for the collision, and Eichner remounting his ATV and
taking off still in the lead followed by Frederick,
but shortly afterwards in the sand wash, Eichner would
move over and allow Frederick to take the lead with
only two laps remaining in the race.
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| #114
Jeremy Schell applying the pressure to #1 Doug
Eichner |
Meanwhile, Jeremy Schell caught wind that Eichner was
slowing down and only 30 seconds separated the pair,
so Schell reached for a handful of throttle the last
two laps recording his fastest lap-times of the race,
and was able to reel in Eichner on the last lap and
take over second place with Eichner finishing less than
two seconds behind Schell.
Nearly two minutes later, John Shafe crossed the finish
line in 4th place followed by his teammate Levi Marana
in 5th place. Michael Cafro incredibly was able to recover
from a 19th place start and overcome Tim Shelman in
the final laps of the race to claim an impressive 6th
place finish. Chris Riley, Brandon Brown, and Zack Herrera
rounded out the top ten.
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#14
Mike Cafro |
#11
Tim Shelman |
For Josh Frederick, it was his third straight year
he has won the opening round at Speed World and claim
the early Pro points lead, but in the end, it would
be Doug Eichner on top with the Championship.
If the opening round of the WORCS race is any sign
of what is in store for the rest of the 2007 season,
it should be one of the most exciting years of WORCS
racing to date with several championship contenders
in the Pro Class. The next round of racing is less than
two weeks away in Victorville, CA on February 10-11th,
which is known to be a challenging course and should
provide for yet another great round of racing.
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(Left
to Right) Doug Eichner, Josh Frederick, Jeremy
Schell |
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