JUNE 9–CHUCK WOODFORD WINS THE MOOSE RUN

JUNE 9–CHUCK WOODFORD WINS THE MOOSE RUN

Kawasaki Team Green’s Chuck Woodford won Bill Gusse’s baby, the Moose Run. Tagged as the ‘World’s toughest off-road race, round three of the Off-Road Motorcycle and ATV (OMA) Nationals had Woodford battling with Yamaha rider Jimmy Jarrett for the first five laps of the grueling seven-lap race. The race lasted four hours, 15 minutes and 59 seconds. Woodford and Jarrett played tag for several hours before Woodford put four plus minutes on Jarrett during the last two laps.

Woodford said he had issues on laps two and three. ‘ I just couldn’t shake Jarrett, every time I’d start to pull away I’d do something dumb and endo. This is not the kind of race that you want to make a lot of mistakes because you just plain wear yourself out just picking yourself up over and over. Eventually I crashed hard enough that I bent my rear brake pedal out, and I had to stop and bend it back. From there, I knew I had to settle down or I’d end up taking myself out.’

Jarrett said, ‘Woodford and I probably broke away too fast in the beginning. We both ended up making a lot of mistakes and I just wore myself out. When he stopped to fix his brake that was the last time I had the lead. I ended up hitting a tree pretty hard and just had to back down and let Chuck go.’

Rounding out the top five were Cole Calkins (Kaw), Shane Watts (KTM) and Nathan Kanney (Yam)