Lake Havasu WORCS 2007
- Updated: March 11, 2007
WORCS Round 3
Speedworld
Lake Havasu, AZ
March 11, 2007
photos and story by Jeff Bertuzzi
Doug Eichner and his #1 Honda rips through the hot pits. Next round he’ll be on the Polaris Outlaw 525 with Fox Floats front and rear.
Lake Havasu… The first weekend of Spring Break! MTV, college students and quads, — what an interesting combination. While MTV was in Havasu shooting a Road Rules Challenge and college students partied hard, WORCS racers gathered for their own party and took on one of the most brutal tracks on the circuit.
Temps flirted around with the 90 degree range, which is pretty warm for March. Would the heat be a factor in the long race? The track had a “brief” motocross section with a few small doubles and two table top jumps. Then the beating began with a 2.8 mile section of rock, sand whoops, ruts and holes. Riders really loved the big long beach section where they could open it up. As ruts and whoops developed on it as the race progressed, riders drifted closer and closer to the water to find a smooth line. Some (including yours truly) where tempted with a plunge just to cool off.
In this section the waves from the lake washed up to make a nice mud hole for Josh Frederick and the rest of the Pros. In the end, once again, the two Epic Quads found their way to the podium as they did in rounds one and two.
With some riders heading south to the BAJA 250, the Saturday Pro Production and Open Pro races had the smallest turnout of the year. In the Pro Production race the #48 of Dustin Terry was able to pull off the upset and finish 11 seconds in front of Doug Eichner, who was riding his Honda for the last time before switching to his new Polaris factory ride. The # 53 of Chris Riley rounded out the top three.
The Open Pro only had 5 riders, one of whom was Epic’s Jeremy Schell who uses the Open Pro race as practice to see the track before the big race on Sunday with the $5000 Pro Purse. Josh Fredrick led for most of the laps and had the fastest lap time, but had some trouble before the last lap and ended up in fourth in the pro precurser. Zack Herrera ended up with first and Tim Shelman earned the second place spot.
The very narrow course and deep whoops put even the toughest suspension set up to the test.
The Big Show
Two of the four members of the winning Baja 250 team, Mike Cafro and Levi Marana, hurried back from Mexico in time to up the pro entries to 17, which is the lowest this year to date. But this race also offered the biggest pay out, so pro riders were anxious to cash in on the loot.
On to the main, Eichner pulled the holeshoot and was right where he wanted to be, putting a gap between himself and the Team Epic boys of Schell and Frederic, but Robbie Mitchell was just a second back for the first two laps before having problems.
Frederick was on the move trying to make up time, until the 3rd lap where he got a flat tire and posted his slowest lap (06:32.3). At the same time Eichner was on the gas posting his fastest lap time (05:35.1). unfortunately for Eichner, one last win on his Honda wasn’t in the cards. He was blacked flagged for having his kill switch cord come disconnected from his body. He was able to quickly fix the problem, but shortly after his Honda started sputtering and Josh was able to make up the ground and take over the lead on the last lap.
So there you have it Josh Frederick makes it three in a row and took home the biggest payout of the season. Jeremy Schell put in one heck of a ride to earn the last spot on the podium. The “So Cal Hick” charged from 15th all the way to third.
Round 4 in Payette, ID on April 7th is next up. Will Eichner be the first Pro to put a Polaris on the Podium at a WORCS race? Will Epic quads continue to dominate the podium? Can anyone beat Josh Frederick? We can’t wait to find out.
