Clay Peaks WORCS, Payette, ID 2007

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Updated: April 8, 2007

WORCS Round 4
Clay Peaks
Payette, ID
April 8, 2007

photos and story by Jeff Bertuzzi

The long up hill start really let you know who had the best motor.

The track in Payette, Idaho was open, fast and certainly lived up to its “Clay Peaks” name . With all of the hills and elevation changes those with the most horsepower had a definite advantage. The track, with the exception of a few tight washes, was wide and allowed riders to pass at will. I check the weather online before making the drive to Payette and it showed no showers until midweek, weather forecasts aren’t always correct however.

On to the Players…
Doug Eichner made his Polaris Outlaw 525 debut. His new factory Polaris ride featured Fox Float front and rear shocks, a few custom parts on the rear IRS and a Duncan Racing exhaust, which gave the big 525cc engine plenty of boost to get the job done.

Bronson Bundy # 69 tests out his new Kawi on the down hill section.

Jeremy Schell had made some changes as well. When I was looking at his quad, with a big smile on his face, he asked me if I had noticed anything different. He had made the switch from his prototype Bilstien shocks and returned to his long-time sponsorship with PEP. Schell’s PEP ZPS shocks looked ready to tackle the terrain indeed and would later prove to be the perfect match for the high speed track and fast corners.

Josh Fredrick stayed with the Bilstiens however. After all he is undefeated in the series after three rounds with this setup. Levi Marana was using the Team’s Temecula Honda 450R that won the Baja 250. It seems his own bike was having some problems and wasn’t ready for round four, but the Baja quad would match nicely with the high speed section of the Payette track. There was only one Kawasaki KFX450 in the Pro ranks and a few in the amateur ranks.

Let’s move on and see how the big players did.

Eichner uses his IRS to fly down the outside line of the downhill section.

Pro Production
Off the line of the Pro-Production race launched the Outlaw 525 of Doug Eichner. Doug continued to lead for two laps on his new mighty Polaris before he had an overheating issue with one of the coolant lines, which broke under the conditions.

Josh Fredrick ended up having some issues with his suspension settings and only did two laps. This opened the door for Dustin Terry to repeat his first place performance from the previous round. Brandon Brown took second and Mike Machado finished in third.

The track for the Open Pro race was very beat up and dusty. Fredrick usually likes to win this race, Schell uses it as practice and Eichner doesn’t normally race it.

This time out, just to change things up a little, Eichner used it to get some more tuning time on his new Outlaw, Josh was still playing with his shocks and Schell decided it was a good day to challenge for a win.

Look close, is there one quad or two in this pic?

Young Levi Marana of Temecula Motorsports was off to a great start and for the first two laps he increased his lead over second place rider Mike Cafro.

The problem for the rest of the field was the fact that Jeremy Schell felt so good with his new PEP shocks instead of messing around for a few warm up laps, he decided to put the hammer down! Schell moved from 7th place in the first lap up to second and started to put pressure on Marana. On the fourth lap he logged an 8:58 lap time, the only 8-minute-lap of the race. The only other time faster that day was Dustin Terry’s. To Schell’s credit after four hours of racing the track does get a lot rougher. Schell went on to pass Marana on the next lap, held the lead and took the well-deserved win. Marana held on to second and Cafro rounded out the top three respectfully.

If you look closely at Eichner’s hand-guards you’ll see that they are just one gallon containers that they cut, decaled and mounted to keep his hands dry. Whatever “WORCS”.

Pro Main
Who would win the big race? Eichner on the factory-backed Polaris Outlaw 525, Schell with his new PEP ZPS shocks? Would Fredrick get four in a row? Or would one of the Temecula boys pull off the upset?

Well I personally have raced with Josh for years and figured he was due for a breakdown (just messin with ya Josh) and as for Eichner, I figured he would need a few more races to adjust to the IRS (not that I know anything about that) so my money was on “The So Cal Hick” Jeremy Schell, he looked fast and hungry for a win and that was my early prediction for round four’s overall.

But I forgot the one cardinal rule of a WORCS race and that is to plan for rain, even if the weather doesn’t call for it! It had rained all through the night. The morning amateur classes did their part to clean up as much mud off the track as possible for the Pro and Pro-am main event, but it was still pretty bad out there.

The #6 of Zack Herrera gets a quick cleaning to cool off his quad in the heavy mud.

On to the start, Eichner with the Outlaw 525 powerplant and an inside line pick, took the holeshot, with Schell on the outside and Fredrick with his typical mid-pack start. Josh tried to make a move and doubled through one of the sections that everybody was just rolling through, but with all the mud he was bounced the wrong way and ended up losing positions instead of gaining. Schell in the meantime had made his move on Eichner and was stretching his lead when a flat slowed his efforts. He ended up losing his impressive lead on Eichner. Doug was riding hard on the new Outlaw, but Schell had fixed the flat and Frederick was charging through the pack aggressively – so by no means would this be an easy inherited win for Eichner.

Frederick takes the checkered flag and displays a rare burst of emotion.

When the three (Eichner, Schell and Frederick) came through the scoring shoots on the sixth lap, less than one second separated their times! Schell ended up blowing a coolant hose and only ended up finishing six of the ten laps. Frederick ended up making the pass for the lead on the seventh lap and pushed his lead out to over a minute. But Eichner was able to give Polaris its first Pro podium in a WORCS race and the first Pro podium in a National series for the Outlaw IRS. Levi Marana was able to keep his Temecula-entry running for the whole race (well almost, he did kill it just before the last lap but I didn’t have to push start him this race :) . Marana made the final podium position nonetheless.