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Can-Am ATVs Sweep
Weekend Races
Can-Am X-Team racers had a wild weekend of
racing in both New York and California. At the
Unadilla GNCC race near New Berlin, N.Y., Team
Warnert Racing / Can-Am rider Chris Bithell held
off eight-time GNCC champion, Bill Balance, to
take the afternoon overall championship. Bithell
got a less-than-ideal start off the line and was
dead last when the other 20 pro racers headed
into the woods. By the third lap, he took the
lead by making up ample time on the motocross
portion of the rugged course and powered his way
to the win. His DS 450 worked strong for the
entire two-hour race helping him take the
checkered flag. This marks the first XC1
Pro-class win for the DS 450 and capped off an
astonishing day of GNCC racing.
It was astonishing because in the morning
session, X-Team racer Bryan Buckhannon (already
crowned the 4x4 Open class champion for 2008)
rode his Outlander 800 to the overall win in
front of almost 250 other racers. This is only
the second time in GNCC racing history that a
utility machine took an overall win. When was
the last time? At the 2008 Snowshoe GNCC when it
was a three-place overall sweep for the
Outlander. This also is the only time a
manufacturer other than Yamaha has completed the
morning and afternoon overall sweep. A big
congratulation goes out to the racers and teams
for breaking Yamaha's grip on this stat!
Out west, it was also the DS 450 that was
shining. Team Motoworks / Can-Am had plenty to
celebrate as its riders had a great weekend of
racing. Josh Frederick piloted his DS 450 to the
Honey Lake WORCS win near Milford, Calif. In the
process, Frederick secured enough points to earn
the 2008 WORCS Pro-class championship! What an
accomplishment for the DS 450 in its first full
season of WORCS competition. His teammate,
Brandon Smith, was second in the race behind
Frederick. Dillon Zimmerman, also of Team
Motoworks, took first in the Pro-Am class, too.
"This has easily been the most successful
weekend of racing our
Can-Am X-Team has ever had," said Del
Bohlman, Product, Media Relation and Racing
Manager for Can-Am ATVs at BRP. "To date we have
at least six championships on Can-Am ATVs and we
are working on more. The wins at the Unadilla
GNCC and at the Honey Lake WORCS race were a
special part of this successful weekend."
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