RACE REPORT: 2016 WHS #3 | Gorman

MORGAN SHOWS THE SPEED AT GORMAN; SUFFERS MECHANICAL.

Gorman, CA (March 20th, 2016) –

As the third round of the West Hare Scrambles Championship series headed into Gorman, CA, Rocky Mountain ATV/MC, Precision Concepts, Maxxis Racing’s Justin Morgan was no doubt looking for a turnaround in the misfortunes that had plagued him at the two previous rounds.

A fast, dry, and slick racecourse awaited the riders at Gorman, but in a bit of a surprise, the WHS crew decided to throw down a bit of water on the motocross portion of the track, which played into Justin’s favor as he didn’t enjoy the best of starts. In Justin’s own words, “[Watering the moto track] worked to my advantage quite a bit because from a bad [three-kick] start, I was able to pass a lot of the field in the first five corners.”

Morgan slotted into fifth place behind Travis Coy and Cory Graffunder early-on, but it didn’t take long for him to move past both riders. “There were a lot of ninety-degree corners by the pits, where it was a big advantage to be right behind somebody, and Coy blew a corner, then just after that Graffunder blew a corner and I was able to get by both of them. I gapped them pretty quick and it was just Jake [Argubright] and Nick [Burson] ahead of me. I was riding really tight and pumped up those few couple laps, but by the third lap I was starting to feel really good.”

That’s when disaster struck, as Justin’s race bike started to experience an electrical/mechanical issue. “It was frustrating. Once the bike got really hot, it would cut out and then just stop running. I tried a few quick-fixes on the course, but nothing helped. Once the bike cooled down it would run for a little while, but then it would do the same thing again, so I just limped it to the finish to avoid a DNF.”

As heartbreaking as it was to be running up front and suffer an issue, Justin’s looking at the takeaways. “It was a bummer, but the positive’s that I got to prove that I’m capable of running at the speed of the top guys. That was pretty cool.”

Justin’s next event will be the second round of the National Hare and Hound series, in Murphy, ID, on April 2/3.

Results

Gallery

courtesy of Mark Kariya

GoPro Footage