Beasley Claims 3rd Straight Win While Swift Takes a Spot on The Podium

Michael Swift Clifton Beasley Chris Jenks

Morganton, North Carolina (March 30, 2008) – Mud was once again the name of the game at Steel Creek this past weekend, but that did not put a damper on events for the Warnert Racing/Can-Am team. Cliff Beasley took his 3rd consecutive win in the 4x4 Lites classes and 4x4 Limited class racer, Michael Swift’s win Landed him an impressive 3rd overall in the A.M. races.

Beasley’s win did not come easy for him. “It’s kind of embarrassing,” he stated in regards to his last place holeshot, “But I guess sometimes it’s better to work your way up from the back.” The track conditions were rough and only deteriorated as the day wore on, but that seemed to work to Beasley’s advantage, as he is known for his skills in being able to negotiate unfavorable terrain that usually slows down other racers. “It was rough, but everything went really well out there!” he said. Cliff’s #206 Can-Am Outlander 500 claimed a time of 02:02:13, which earned him a 6th place overall for the day.

Michael Swift had a much better start than Beasley. Grabbing the holeshot, Swift caught up to and passed all the riders in the other class as well by the time he reached mile marker 6 on his first lap. “After I got past the other class, I just kind of checked out,” he said. Swift’s run went well and he managed to avoid most of the bottlenecks that occurred, which earned him an overall time of 2:01:58, which was only 27 seconds off of second overall. Swift is hoping to take his 3rd win of the season in 4x4 Ltd. at the next round in Union, SC, where he also won last year.

Scott Kilby claimed an impressive 2nd place in the 4x4 Open class aboard his Can-Am Outlander 800 H.O, which is his best finish so far this season. Kilby finished with a time of 2:07:55, which earned him a 14th place overall.

Rick Cecco, who placed 1st in round one and 2nd in round two, had an unfortunate encounter with some tree roots in his first lap, which blew one of his tires off the rim and bent his steering stem, causing him to limp his quad back to the pits for repairs. Cecco managed to salvage points by working his way back up to 10th place with a time of 2:31:08. According to Cecco, he and the Warnert crew will be doing some suspension testing on his Can-Am Renegade 800 before the next round. Everything has been working really good so far and this should make it even better,” said Cecco, who is looking forward to testing out the changes.

Despite Rick Cecco’s incident, the morning classes went well for the Warnert team; however, the afternoon XC1 class seemed to encounter a few more problems. Chris Jenks and Chris Bithell, who had done fairly well in the first two rounds, encountered their fair share of problems out on the track. Jenks, who had been running strong in 5th place his first lap, ran into problems on the track and began to fall back, and ultimately ended things early for him in his 3rd lap.

Meanwhile, the #03 bike of Chris Bithell was T-boned in the 2nd corner, which put him back to 16th place. The impact from his crash is also the suspected culprit in his 3rd lap engine failure. “After I got hit, the bike started making funny noises and was blowing out oil,” said Bithell, who is hoping for a better go of things in South Carolina.

The Warnert/Can-Am team will be heading to Big Buck in Union, South Carolina for round #4 on April 12th, where it hopes to see its racers dominating in their respective classes.