Fowler, Richardson Sweep GNCC ATV at Unadilla
- Updated: September 8, 2014
Nick Wheeler took the $100 All Balls Racing XC2 Holeshot Award.
After a long summer break, the GNCC off-road season resumed at Unadilla in New York, with N-Fab/AmPro Yamaha’s Walker Fowler winning the XC1 Pro class and teammate Cole Richardson dominating the XC2 Pro Am on Saturday, Sept. 6. For Fowler, it was his fourth win of the year over defending champion Chris Borich, who finished over a minute behind Fowler’s YFZ450R in second. The great result draws Fowler to within 20 points of Borich in the standings. And in XC2 Pro Am, Richardson put in another dominating performance to best the next closest rider by an amazing seven minutes. He also finished fifth overall in a field stacked with pro riders. Richardson’s fifth consecutive win – and seventh for the year – gives him a narrow six-point gap over rival Marshal Goings with three events left to go.
At the start of the two-hour afternoon XC1 Pro and XC2 Pro Am race, rival Adam McGill took the holeshot, but Fowler quickly forged his way into the lead over Borich, McGill and Braden Henthorn. At one point Fowler amassed a lead of over 53 seconds before points leader Borich cut the gap in half near the halfway point of the contest. But Fowler and his YFZ were up to the challenge, turning up the heat on the final laps to take the win by nearly 1 min. 15 sec. “It feels good to get this one out of the way,” Fowler said. “I’m hoping to keep the championship chase alive until the very end – we’ll see how it goes.”
Meanwhile in the XC2 Pro Am class, Richardson locked into an early battle with Marshal Goings, with the pair separated by less than 15 seconds after the first of six laps. From there on though Richardson was long gone, at first growing his lead to a minute, and then to over three minutes as mechanical difficulties slowed Goings. Finally the Yamaha rider took the checkers an impressive 7 min. 1 sec. ahead of Goings, putting six championship points between the pair in the process. Yamaha ATV riders succeeded in other classes on Saturday as well, stacking up a grand total of 10 class wins and 15 podiums.
In Sunday afternoon’s three-hour XC1 Pro and XC2 Pro Lites motorcycle race, N-Fab/AmPro/Yamaha YZ450F-mounted Paul Whibley grabbed the holeshot before dropping to second behind Kailub Russell on the opening lap, while
teammate Jordan Ashburn held onto fifth before crashing on lap two and temporarily dropping outside the top 10. Fortunately however, Rocky Mountain ATV/MC/N-Fab/AmPro/Yamaha’s Josh Strang took up the charge for the bLU cRU, racing his own YZ450F through the pack in a heated battle with several rivals. He advanced into third on the seventh of eight laps and then held on to claim his seventh podium of the year. Whibley ultimately finished sixth, while Ashburn recovered for eighth after pitting for repairs. Most happily, Strang’s latest podium pulled him up to second in the championship. “Obviously third place isn’t where I’d like to be, but I’m glad to finish on the podium and will keep working to get a win this season,” Strang said. Yamaha Motorcycle riders succeeded in their classes on Sunday as well, stacking up a grand total of 7 class wins and 18 podiums.