Chad Wienen Wins 3rd AMA Pro ATV Championship
- Updated: July 28, 2014
Aboard his Wienen Motorsports Yamaha YFZ450R, Chad Wienen raced to his third consecutive AMA Pro ATV championship with a dominating 1-1 moto sweep at RedBud MX in Buchanan, Mich. on Saturday, July 26. After holding the red- background points leader’s plate all season long, at RedBud Wienen led 19 of the 20 total laps to emphatically earn the overall win and the 2014 title. Although Wienen took the honors with one round left to go in the season, the racing is far from over because teammate Thomas Brown, who finished fourth overall at RedBud, lies third in the standings, just 11 points behind rival Joel Hetrick.
Wienen started the day by posting the quickest qualifying practice time, amped and ready to take charge and secure his third series title. But it was rival John Natalie who got the jump in the first of two races, grabbing the holeshot with Wienen just behind. However the Yamaha rider raced ahead on the second lap, building up a comfortable gap that would last throughout the moto, and ultimately winning by almost 3.3 seconds over Hetrick and Natalie. Brown started in fourth and hounded Natalie for the entire distance, charging hard on the final lap to close within 0.25 sec. of a podium finish.
While the first-moto win poised Wienen on the verge of the championship, he still needed points from the second moto to wrap up the title. He did the job with style too, grabbing the holeshot and leading every lap to celebrate a perfect day and an outstanding season, with Brown once again finishing a solid fourth. So dominating was Wienen and his YFZ this year that his sixth overall win of the year gave him the title with a huge 77-point advantage over Hetrick – and there’s still one event left to run at Loretta Lynn’s Ranch in Tennessee on Aug 9. “This is amazing,” Wienen said. “I’m just blessed and my Yamaha is the heartbeat that got me here. I’m just so pumped right now – I’m at a loss for words!” Yamaha ATV racing coordinator Donnie Luce added, “By winning three championships, Chad joins an elite group of riders in AMA Pro ATV motocross history. I’m glad he has chosen to win them all on YFZ450Rs.”
Yamaha’s Dustin Nelson likewise had a fine weekend in the Yamaha QuadX series at Glen Helen Raceway in Southern California, putting his own YFZ450R
into second on the podium with 2-2 finishes behind rival David Haagsma. Nelson has won or podiumed in all six Yamaha QuadX events this year, and leads the standings by a wide margin heading into the last two rounds of the series.
