Muddy Creek MX, Blountville, TN 2005

GNC MX Round 8
Muddy Creek MX
Blountville,TN
May 27, 2005

A few rounds prior on the ITP ATV Grand National Motocross Championship Series it was said that if John “Ironman” Natalie got out front it’s all over. In order to beat him, his rivals would need to get out front early in the race and he would need a bad start. Ironman left this theory in the dust recently at the eighth stop of the record breaking 2005 series, otherwise known as the Muddy Creek National in Blountville, TN. Natalie barely averaged a top five spot out of the hole in each moto. This was certainly not consistent to his recent terror from the gate, but nonetheless he still found opportunity to pass his way into another overall victory.

 

 

Moto One
Muddy Creek had a whopping 606 entries come race time. This easily beat their record of 550 last year. When pro moto one entered the gate, most of these racers became spectators. No one wants to miss the excitement that this year’s pro motos provide. Travis Spader put his TC Racing Yamaha in the lead and pulled away from the field on the first lap. LSR Yamaha’s Keith Little followed, while Yoshimura Suzuki’s “Digger” Doug Gust, East Coast ATV’s Dustin Wimmer and Alba Yamaha’s Kory Ellis slipped behind in the top five lap one position. After the lap one mark, Spader surrendered to a Doug Gust pass and followed respectively. All the while Ellis ducked inside of Little to take top three.

As laps progressed, Natalie (East Coast ATV/American Honda) put it to the ground and worked his way to the rear fenders of Gust. The battle continued just where it left off two week’s prior. Suzuki vs Honda vs. Yamaha. Does it get any better than this? Kawasaki, Bombardier, Polaris and rumor even has it that maybe even Kymco – all might hope so, but that remains to be seen. As for now Red, Blue and Yellow are entertaining the troops just fine.

By finish time, Natalie had stole Gust’s lead more than once. In the end though, “Digger” prevailed and took the first moto back to his Yoshimura Suzuki trackside headquarters with confidence and authority. “I have Rick doing my suspension now. I like it a lot. He did an awesome job. I was set up real well and my Yoshimura Suzuki worked flawlessly”. Speaking of a well set up Suzuki, Gust’s younger teammate, Jeremiah Jones, must have liked his new suspension set ups as well. Jones passed ten riders after ironically getting tangled up in a Suzuki banner. Jones had impressive speed on the Muddy Creek roller-coaster to say the least.

 

Moto Two
“It felt good to lead today. I want to do that again for sure”, said “T-Doc” Travis Spader after two impressive holeshots. “That down hill is a pretty intense”, said Spader explaining how it felt to lead the field twice. “You end up going way faster on it than you do in practice”, added the happy-go-lucky New Jersey National Champion. Behind Spader’s blue number 30 number plate was Jones, Suzuki privateer, Harold “The Bee” Goodman (Sparks, JPMX, Walsh), Natalie and Ellis.

East Coast’s Dustin Wimmer put together an excellent first moto and finished with a well ridden four spot. Unfortunately for Wimmer his second moto start forced him out of contention. Wimmer got pinched off at the first turn and went over the bars. Speaking of early moto follies, Gust got tangled with Keith Little and Matt White (Hetrick Racing). Gust ended up smacking a steel pole pretty hard. By the time he got separated from the pole he found himself mid pack at best. For most riders this might mean a non-podium for the day. Not so for Gust. He rode the wheels off his Z400, passed eight riders and finished up in fourth, (good enough for another runner-up overall). “I got a bad start and made a mistake. I got tangled up in a corner for a while. When I got into fourth I knew I had second overall so it went pretty well considering.”

It didn’t take Natalie long to muscle his way around the track and into the lead. Jones followed but was no match for Natalie’s hard charging, high flying assault. As Natalie checked out for the yet another moto win this year, Ellis eventually worked into a comfortable third place position, this spot would later put him on the third place podium. “I’m pretty happy with this. It seems like every time I come to this track my allergies make it tough for me to breath out there. The last few races I’ve been able to get a few good starts and finally put two decent motos together. I’m going to continue to train hard and be ready for Mt Morris. I usually do pretty good at that track. I’m looking forward to it”, said Ellis after the race.

“I got a little bit of arm pump in the first moto but felt good in the second. I was able to just go out and cruise for the win”, said Ironman after the race. He added, “There’s been a lot of stuff going on between myself, Suzuki’s Jones and Gust recently. I think we proved in the last two races that we can race together and not have any problems. I think Suzuki has really stepped up and helped the whole sport out. I just want to make it clear that none of my fans really have a grudge against them, because I certainly don’t.” Natalie’s win marked his fifth of the year. Is he unstoppable? As of late it appears so. We’ll find out in the next four rounds.

Tags:

Comments

comments