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The River Ranch GNCC Race Report
River Ranch,
Florida, March 1, 2009
William Yokley finished 13th Overall today in
this tough Florida sand race. There were
160 total entries with 21 XC1 Pro Riders.
Team Rider Mark Notman finished 110th Overall
and 27th in the 36 rider XC2 Pro Am Class after
experiencing some mechanical issues.
Summary
It’s been a very busy several months since
the last race getting everything ready for this
season. I am privileged to have the Army
National Guard returning as the Title Sponsor of
Yokley Racing; Polaris is providing 450 Outlaws
for Mark and me this year, and we couldn’t be
happier with the machines.
Mark and I arrived at my usual place to
practice in Florida a few days before the race
to sort out our bikes and get used to the sand.
With my new program coming together, I was
pumped to get on the new 2009 Polaris Outlaw and
get some riding in. Within the first 30
minutes, I clipped a stump and thought I’d
broken my wrist. After a while, I was able
to feel and use my fingers again, so I thought
to myself that it was no big deal. The
next day I woke up with my wrist all swelled up
and unable to ride. I was totally bummed
out; I spent all day getting it checked out at a
hospital, and realized I may not be able to
race. I let it rest for a couple of days,
and by race day I was able to use it enough to
ride. Even without much time to do
suspension tuning, my National Guard Polaris
worked pretty darn awesome anyway.
River Ranch Resort is a great place to hold a
race; it is a 1700 acre Dude Ranch with all
kinds of amenities such as hotels, restaurants,
a rodeo, and an airport. The course was
typical Florida whoops and deep sand berms.
I got a great start and went into the woods in
3rd place. I ran pretty good the 1st lap
but as the track got worse and my shocks heated
up, the lack of testing and my weak wrist
started setting in. I wasn’t able to keep
up the pace with the leaders, but managed to
make a few adjustments while pitting to make the
bike work better.
My teammate Mark Notman was excited and ready
after a good winter of testing and riding his
new Polaris. He got a 10th place start and
moved up to 4th going into the woods. Mark
started to get pretty bad arm pump halfway
through lap 1 and had trouble holding on to the
bike. This was very unusual since he never
gets arm pump! He fell back to 7th and by
lap 2 they were still pumped up and he was back
in 14th place. On lap 3, his spark plug
cap came off which is another thing that never
happened before. He figured out what
happened and replaced it, but had lost a lot of
time. The cap continued to pop off and
would not stay on. His crew decided it was
best if he pulled in since he was already a lap
down and outside the top 20. We will get
this corrected so this won’t happen again.
We will stay in Florida and get our bikes ready
for the next race in the Georgia clay. I’m
very happy with my bike and program for this
year. The Polaris Outlaw has proven itself
to me and the team that it’s worthy of going out
on the track and kicking some ass! I look
forward to seeing you all at the next race.
Yokley Racing Team Sponsors are The Army
National Guard, Polaris Industries, Kenda Tires,
Elka Suspension, Roll Design, HMF Exhaust
Systems, IMS/Roll, PURE Polaris Lubricants &
Fuels, Intense Fabrication & Design, Douglas
Wheel Technology, Moto Pro Training, Tire Balls,
Andrews Cycle, Tsubaki Chains, IMS, Four
Apparel, ASV Levers, CV4 Hoses, Hygh Octane
Design, PIER Graphics, Universal Handlebars,
Scott Goggles, ATVRiders.com, Hetrick
Motorsports, Powermadd, and Rekluse Clutches.
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