12 Hours of ATV America 2007
- Updated: November 10, 2007
After dominating the first and most of the second session, WPSA Pro Am champion, Cody Miller of Team Miller Bros & Brown used his home turf advantage and actually reeled in John Natalie. At one point the 289 machine of Cody Miller was seen only two second behind the number one of John Natalie with two hours remaining in the race. However, soon after Cody’s heroic comeback, the bottom let loose for Team Miller Bros & Brown. Mere minutes after the word was out that Team Miller Bros & Brown were within striking distance of Borich’s “unbeatable” team the clutch cable let go on Cody’s Yamaha right at the scoring area. With no clutch and the quad still in gear his quad launched out from under him, knocked down the OCCRA Scoring display and ran over the EZ Up. In all the confusion a non riding member of Team Miller Bros & Brown ran over to help push Cody’s machine into the impound area while Hunter Miller took off on the team’s other Yamaha. The ref spotted this and despite the fact that it was considered petty my many the team was docked one lap. This instantly put them out of contention. Some 40 minutes later the team’s final running machine came to a stop and they threw in the towel, but not after impressing many people including Borich, Natalie and Bithell themselves.
All the while Team Dirt Works Motorsports (Duane Johnson, Michael Burrows and Kyle Martin) kept a steady pace all the way to the checkers only one lap behind Team Tom Clark Motorsport’s eventual 59 total laps.
Worth mentioning was Team CT Racing (Romaine Couprie, Jay Clement and Ternynck) who made the long haul from France. They were the only foreign team to compete at this year’s running. The three French riders put in several impressive laps and were one of only three teams to double the 80 foot double on the motocross track. If it weren’t for set up issues this team without a doubt had what it took to land a podium spot on their first try. In the end they lost too much time in the impound and pit area trying to make changes while the race progressed. Nonetheless, despite the down time, they still finished a respectable 8th overall. With the current dollar vs Euro value, it’s way more affordable for Europeans to come here than vice versa, (not to mention there’s a much bigger purse money at stake here) – so don’t be surprised if you see several overseas teams entered in next year’s race.
Yet another very controversial call happened that drastically involved the top three overall positions. With two laps remaining the number 70 of Team Media Allstars (Aaron Meyer, Brandon Smith and Caleb Moore) ended up being docked a lap for not coming to a stop in the scoring area, but not before Team Media Allstars logged several extremely fast lap times and turned heads throughout the second half of the race. It appeared that Caleb Moore came through with more mud on the side of his helmet than usual. The score team could not clean and read the bar code before he took off. Back up scorers quickly penciled in “70?” in a guess as to who they thought it was. After further investigation it was determined that it was indeed the 70 of Team Media Allstars. If the lap were counted Team Media Allstars would receive third place overall by a mere four seconds. Team Trifecta protested this as it was clearly stated in the riders meeting that any team not hearing the word “Go” or seeing their number on the OCCRA scoring display would not get credit for the lap. In the end, as petty as many thought it was Team Media Allstars did not get credit for the lap and third place overall instead went to Team Trifecta (Donald Ockerman, Shawn Hess and David Crane).
| Past 12 Hours of ATV America Overall Winners: | ||
| 2002 Team Walsh Racing Mike Walsh Doug Gust Joe Byrd |
2003 Team HiPer Wheels Chris Borich Matt Smiley Mike Krachun |
2004 Team East Coast ATV Chris Borich Matt Smiley John Natalie |
| 2005 Team Honda / East Coast Chris Borich John Natalie Cyle Chislock |
2006 Team Honda / East Coast Chris Borich John Natalie Chris Bithell |
2007 Team Tom Clark Chris Borich John Natalie Chris Bithell |
