GLEN HELEN WORCS

Ryan Hughes dominated the second round of the World Off-Road Championship at Glen Helen this week. It was a very motocross oriented course and that suited Hughes just fine as he rode a KTM 250SX with no off-road modifications. That meant he had to pit twice, but his advantage was so great he could have pitted every lap and still won. Second place was a battle for most of the race between Russ Pearson (Yam) and Scott Sheak (Kaw). In the final laps of the long race, though, Sheak fell hard leaving Pearson all alone. Ty Davis, Lance Smail and Robert Naughton and all raced hard for third with Davis coming out on top.
The course was basically a combination of Glen Helen’s National track and REM track with almost no off-road-type sections, making for an eight-minute lap time. That left some off-road heroes like Destry Abbott and Brian Garrahan struggling around tenth place for most of the race. Organizer Dave Hamel threw in a section where the riders had to negotiate logs and tractor tires, but it mostly provided comic relief for the spectators. Despite worries of dust bowl conditions, Glen Helen course officials managed to keep the four-mile course in decent shape for the two days of racing.