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ITP QuadCross
Round 4 – Glen Helen Raceway – Yamaha’s Kory
Ellis Surprise Visit Takes Home the Win
Kory Ellis at his home track and
taking home the win in the Pro Class and Open
Pro Class |
Now back at the home track, the ITP Quad
Cross round 4 was held at Glen Helen Raceway.
The day was sunny and awesome for racing, with
the track in a slightly different layout then
the opening round. With some of the big players from
the national circuit on hand again this round, it
would be some great So. Cal ATV racing. Kory
Ellis was back home visiting taking a break
before his next round of national racing. M.I.A.
was Dana Creech and Jeremy Schell, the ITP Quad
Cross Champ. Jeremy went back East to train for
the nationals and the new WPSA series. I spoke
with Jeremy at round three and he was planning
on going back home to Missouri to train with
some of his old friends from the nationals like
Joe Bryd current GNC points leader. As for Dana,
mostly likely he was also preparing for the WPSA
series, which is backed by ESPN2. Dana was at the Supermoto Race at the Stateline
at the beginning
of April, racing his Rhino not his ATV. We don’t
know if these front runners are going to return
to racing this series. CT Racing’s
Allen Knowles was spotted roaming the pits with
a rider from France here to race the GNC
Nationals aboard his Yamaha YFZ450. They raced
the Quad Cross the week before for a little
practice.
The Frenchman, Romain Couprie, who is
the MX Champion in France, looked pretty good
out in practice.
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Pro Moto 1
The pros fired up the engines and waited for the
gate to drop. Instead of
breaking the class up into to separate gates, as
in the past, mainly because of the larger
turnout, this round they ran the entire class in
one gate. The 18 rider gate came roaring
off the line and into the first turn, out of the dust
and taking the holeshot was
Doug Echiner. As Echiner
rounded the second turn and headed up the
whooped out hill, he and Arizona native Jeff
Spooner tangled on the up hill placing them both
in the back of the pack. Now with the leader and Spooner out of
the picture, Dustin Nelson was right there to
steal the lead followed by Yamaha’s Kory Ellis.
Also in the hunt was John Shafe and Frenchman
Romain Couprie. Nelson and Ellis would battle it
out, as for Romain Couprie was battling with
John Shafe for fourth. Quad Cross regular Dustin
Terry was running a strong fifth.
Kory would eventually work his way around Nelson
and would then start to pull away from the pack
as the moto progressed. The CT Racing backed Romain Couprie also made his pass on Shafe and
then set his sights on Dustin Terry. Both Dustin
Terry and John Shafe have been having a great
season, both in the ITP Quad Cross
and the WORCS Series. John Shafe has been running two classes in both
series and this round ran three, now that takes
stamina.
Checkered flag out and Kory Ellis takes the
first moto win, he had a decent lead on the
second place rider Dustin Nelson. Behind Nelson
was a heated battle which lasted for the last two laps
bar to bar. Couprie was trying to find the line around
Dustin Terry. This would continue all the way to
the last turn. Terry went wide in the turn as Romain dove into the inside, he set
it up perfect and just kept on the gas to just
barely make the pass and some of the best racing
of the day was from these two riders.
Pro Moto 2
The final pro gate of the weekend was
lined up and when the gate dropped, Jeff Spooner would take the early lead. While Cyle Crislock, Dustin Nelson, Kory Ellis
followed in tow. Crislock would keep the
pressure on and would stay close behind Spooner
trying to make the pass, till finally he pushed a
little too hard and spun out. Romain Couprie was
making his charge from mid pack and was closing
on the leaders. As for Kory Ellis he
had taken up the slack where Crislock spun out
and was now on Spooner trying to make the pass. Couprie and Nelson where battling it out
for third, until Couprie made his pass to then set his
sight on 1st place. Kory got around
Spooner as did Couprie on the next lap. The
race was on for both Kory and Couprie, as they chased each other around the
track like a cat and mouse.
As Kory and Couprie continued to race push
each other to rider harder and harder, they
pulled out a commanding lead from the rest of the pack. As the
race was wrapping up with a few laps to go, Kory’s
bike started to have some sort of electrical
issues. With his bike not running at 100%, there was
no way for Kory to hold Couprie off much longer. Couprie would make his pass and pull
away from Kory slightly, where these two riders
would ride out the rest of the race. As for
Spooner and Nelson, they had a battle of their
own. Nelson finally got by Spooner to finish out
the third and fourth spots.
Having run two different class in the
same day John Shafe and a good start in the
Open Class. |
Open Class
At the beginning of the season, a class was added
to accommodate the larger big bore ATVs like the
Raptor 700, DS650, Raptor 660R, Predator 500,
and other custom big bores. The class started
the season off really small with only 2 riders,
but now has grown with many pros using the class
to get some extra seat time and to help tune
their ATVs. This class has now grown
to 10 pro riders and continues to grow.
Kory Ellis raced a trick Raptor 700 in the
first round back in January, this race he chose
to ride his YFZ450. Also on the track was Darrel
Patton back off from an injury earlier on in the
year. Darrel riding a Yamaha Raptor 700,
was putting
in some seat time to help get back in
shape for the rest of the season. There where a
few WORCS racers running the open class like
Mike Cafro from Temecula M/S and John Shafe. We
spoke with John and he stated that he was
running the open class to just get some more
seat time as well to build endurance for the WORCS Series, where the races run an hour to an
hour and 1/2 long. Kory would take 1st and behind him
was Romain Couprie and Mike Cafro.
The Rhino really put on a great show and
had a great race |
Rhino Race
The race to see was the rhino race. Recently most promoters have jumped on the rhino
band wagon. But this race was not just your
ordinary rhino race, these guys where going all
out pushing the limits. The first moto was just
good clean racing with some smooth passes. The
second moto was a different story, it was
like the drivers where out for blood, rubbing
and banging each other. This pack of machines devoured
the course; they seemed to handle the big jumps
fairly well for their size. Eventually this guy
pushed so hard though two machines flipped over
as another got so out of shape that he ended up
stuck sideway on the course and had to be pulled
off the course at the end of the race. Hopefully
this class will grow; it was definitely some awesome
racing action, similar to mini baja
truck racing.
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