RACE REPORT: WORCS #9 | Primm

By Precision Concepts | October 26, 2016

BELL TAKES THIRD TITLE AT WORCS FINALE

Riverside, CA (October 26, 2016) –

For their final event of 2016, the WORCS crew decided to test the racers by leaving the course ungroomed after Saturday’s events; typically, the crew will do some maintenance between days and let the course roughen back up throughout Sunday, but they left it as rough as it could get for the pro finale. “I think it was gnarly!” said Rocky Mountain ATV/MC, Precision Concepts, Maxxis racing’s Justin Seeds when asked what he thought of the track. He continued, “The fact that they didn’t touch it [after Saturday] made it pretty intense. It definitely separated everyone, you couldn’t just pin it because of a smoother track, you had to work for it.”

Justin’s teammate, Robby Bell, was still nursing a broken collarbone that he re-injured slightly at the Big 6 Grand Prix two weekends earlier and had mixed feelings on the rough track conditions. Said Bell, “I’m normally a huge fan of leaving the track as beat as possible, especially when it’s a motorcycle-only course, because it separates the competition, but with my shoulder at less than one hundred percent, I couldn’t help but to think ‘of all the races to leave the course brutally rough, they had to pick this one!’”

Photos courtesy of Harlen Foley

Robby came into the event with a nine-point lead over second place Dalton Shirey in the standings, meaning a fourth place finish would clinch Bell’s third WORCS championship regardless of what Shirey finished. “I’d had some sleepless nights thinking about how my shoulder was going to hold up,” commented Bell, “Normally I’d back myself all day long to finish on the podium, but with my physical health being what it was coming into the race, the fact that so many other riders were really starting to find some more pace, and then seeing the rough conditions on Sunday…yeah, I was a little nervous.”

When the green flag waved, signaling the start of the pro main, Justin Seeds was the quickest to fire his bike up and claimed an uncontested hole shot to start the race, while Robby started at the edge of the top five. “There’s something about Primm,” said Seeds regarding his hole shot, “I’m two-for-two this year with dead-engines at Primm. I was pretty stoked with that because Saturday’s practice starts didn’t work out too well for me.”

Justin’s been working with a new trainer to improve a shoulder ailment that’s been holding him back some this year, especially early in the events, and though it’s been improving, he found the early-race pace a little more than he was willing to match. “I kind of dropped back a little bit with some shoulder issues that I’m addressing,” said Seeds, “but once my shoulder loosened up I was able to pick it back up.”

Meanwhile, Robby had found a steady pace and started working his way forward. “I was stoked to find a good pace early on and worked through some guys to get up into third,” Bell said, “I could see that Dalton was out front and pulling away so I was just focused on getting up front and keeping myself in the podium spots.”

Robby would push all the way up to second position, battling with eventual race-winner Eric Yorba, and just past the halfway point of the race he saw a pit board that would allow him to finally take a huge deep breath. “I came in for the pit and the board said that Dalton had some issues and was five minutes back. It was a bummer for Dalton, who was doing all he could to win the race and put the pressure on me, but it did allow me to finally relax. It even meant I was actually battling for the lead with Eric for a bit, but after seeing the pit board I put it on super cruise mode to make sure I finished and didn’t over-stress my shoulder.”

After his early-race issues, Justin Seeds, was able to recover and put on a charge to finish a strong fourth place, marking a respectable way to close out the WORCS series. “It’s not quite a podium,” said Seeds of his finish, “but I’ll take it. I’m building off of it, and especially how I felt at the end of the race. I’m ready to go for the last two rounds of Big 6 and see what we can do.”

Robby would concede one position to a hard-charging Justin Wallis, but would hang on over the few remaining laps to finish third place, which ended up being more than enough to clinch the third WORCS championship of his career. “I don’t think it’s really hit me yet because this was such a challenging year for me. They do say that the toughest one is the sweetest, and these kids definitely made this year tough! I’m just so grateful to the whole team, my supporters, friends and family for helping me achieve this goal. Now I’m going to go get some good sleep and then take my family to Disneyland.”

Look for Justin Seeds to be back in action in the penultimate round of the BIG 6 Grand Prix championship at Gorman, CA on November 5th while Robby will take the final two rounds off to heal his body for 2017.