OCT 4–WORCS: BERTHLOUD, CO.

OCT 4–WORCS: BERTHLOUD, CO.

Pre-race:
I flew up Friday with my brother-in-law (Tony) and my mechanic. We flew out early enough to make it to the afternoon practice. When we arrived, it was really wet and cold. It?s been raining quite a bit here and looks like it might be a mud race. They ended up not having practice, which wasn?t going to be fun anyway. Then we decided to drive back into town and get some big rubber boots, so we wouldn?t ruin our shoes. When we left there Russ Pearson, David Pearson, and Kellon Walsh were out in the parking lot playing Frisbee. We ended up stopping and then getting into a fierce battle of Frisbee football (or what ever you call it). We set up a little field in the parking lot with the three of us against them. The first one to five touchdowns would win. We scored first, but after that it went downhill. We never scored again and lost pretty bad, but we had a great time doing it. Now I?m back in a warm hotel room trying to catch up on e-mails.

Saturday:
I was planning on racing the 250 race, but decided to race the afternoon open class. The weather was just about perfect and the track was drying up nicely. Most of the pro riders that were going to race the 250 class had decided to wait for the track to dry out and race the open race. There were about 25 pro?s in this race and most of them were all really fast. When we took off, I had a great start and was in second behind Russ Pearson. Lance was able to pass me in the middle of the first lap. Not to far after that, I was able to get around Russ to get back into second. For the next couple of laps, we stayed in this order with the group behind us moving around. Ty moved into third with Nathan Woods fourth. I believe Russ and Kurt Caselli were right in there too. Just before going out on my fourth lap, I was about two seconds behind Lance with Ty not far behind me. Then I tried to jump this step-down for the first time in the race. This was a really dumb move, since I over jumped it by quite a bit. I flat landed and both of my wrists took a pretty big hit with one of my hands coming off the bars. I was pretty sore after this, and decided to call it a day so I could go ice my wrists. Besides the dumb move, I felt really good about the way I was riding. Tonight I feel a lot better and will be ready for tomorrow.

Sunday:
Race morning I felt pretty good and it was just about perfect racing conditions. The pro race started just after noon with a lot of fast guys on the line. I usually don?t get great starts at these races, but this time when the gate dropped I was third coming out of the first corner (this was good). Then we went into a new mx section we didn?t run on Saturday. I was a little tentative and trying to make sure I wasn?t going to over jump something. A few guys got by me, but I stayed with them for the first lap. I was around 5th or 6th and just trying to relax and stay loose. The next few laps I made a couple of passes , but lost a couple of spots too. Around the 40 minute mark, I really started to pick it up. I was following Ty Davis and Matt Karlsen, and we could see were starting to catch Lance Smail. We all made the pass when he pitted a lap before us. Now I moved up a spot, but on the next lap when I pitted Kurt was able to get by me. He was really on the gas, and riding a new 450 KTM (that was pretty trick). A lap later it was a four rider battle with Kurt, Matt, Ty and myself. At this point, Russ was still leading out front and then I think it was Nathan, Bobby Bonds and our four man group. Maybe a lap or two later I was able to get by Ty and I tried to stay with Kurt and Matt, but Kurt was really riding well. He ended up starting to pull away, but Matt and I stayed pretty close to each other (10-15 seconds). Around the 1:40 mark, I was able to catch up to Bobby and pass him to get into the 5th spot. I really charged the next two laps and was able to get within 5 to 10 seconds of Matt and probably 20 seconds behind Nathan. This was about the time we got the white flag and I really thought I might be able to get up on Matt and see if I could make the pass, but I had a couple of issues and had to back off and play it safe to the finish. Russ rode a great race and got his first WORCS pro win, with Kurt putting in a great ride from the back of the pack for second. Third was Nathan (points leader), followed by Matt and myself. Bobby Bonds ran out of gas towards the end of the race, and I?m not sure what happened to Lance Smail. The funny thing was that just after the finish, when I was riding back to the pits, I ran out of gas. It was a good thing I took it easy on the last lap, otherwise I might not have made it. I was really happy with the way I was riding and my conditioning. I know 5th isn?t that great, but the way things are going, I feel I?ll be finishing on the podium here soon. There are so many fast guys this year, and to think next year a couple of more teams will have some new fast guys in the program. It should be fun.

Results: Overall
1st Russ Pearson
2nd Kurt Caselli
3rd Nathan Woods
4th Matt Karlsen
5th Destry Abbott (first two-stroke)
6th Bryce Olsen
7th Ty Davis
8th David Pearson
9th Ricky Dietrich
10th Ted Campbell
11th Brenden Ritzman
12th Justin Soule
13th Brian Brown
14th Pat Garrahan
15th Jesse Barstow
16th Bobby Bonds
17th Kris Papworth

Other Notes:
Kyle Krause from Phoenix was nice enough to take my KX 250 race bike up with his group that were racing, so I could fly up.

We were lucky enough to have Tony Acosta from MRO (motor racing outreach) at the race to do the prayer before the race. It looks like he?ll be going to all the WORCS races for support and Sunday morning Chapel service. This is great news.

Kawasaki Team green had a lot of riders at the race this weekend. In the pro class it was Lance, Bobby, David, Brian Brown, and myself.

It?s been really cool to see a lot more mx/sx riders showing up for the WORCS races. This time we had a couple of Colorado riders (Matt Karlsen and Ted Campbell who used to live in Phoenix) show up and give it a try. We also had Kris Papworth from Utah here. I knew Matt was a good off-road rider, since he did overall a National Hare Scramble up in Colorado a few years ago (I finished 5th at that race).

Everyone from the WORCS crew did a great job at the race, especially after all the rain we?ve been getting up here. The course was like a huge outdoor national, but it was a lot of fun. That was some of the best dirt I?ve ever raced on (besides Washougal). The course started to get pretty rough and some really big ruts. It was a lot of fun.

Next weekend I have off, but I?ll be heading up to the US Open (supporting Ryan Clark) and watching it with Charlotte (my wife). The following weekend I have another WORCS race at Glen Helen.

Best Wishes,
Destry
www.destryabbott.com