Race report from Elka sponsored rider Casey Sims at WORCS Round 2 in Canyon MX:
February 24, 2018- Peoria, AZ- WORCS round 2 at Canyon MX was a tough one. We headed to Arizona on Friday night and arrived at our hotel pretty late. Early on Saturday morning, we headed to the track. I’ve never raced at Canyon MX, but I had talked to some other racers who have raced there, so I had an idea of what to expect. After tech and the drivers meeting, I took some time to check out the parts of the course I could see and I got ready to line up.
There were 6 cars in my class and we were racing with the Women’s 1000 class and the 900 class. The Women’s class took off, then the 900’s, and I watched the flagger and got ready to go. The flag dropped and we took off. Right from the start, I could feel something was wrong with my car. I had lost 4-wheel drive. I kept on the gas and fell into 2nd place off of the line. I didn’t get to practice the day before, so I was focused and learning the course on the first lap. About half way through lap one, my car started to bog and lose power. I radioed to my pit crew who told me to turn my car of and back on again. I slowed down and shut my car off. I had to do it quickly because 3rd and 4th place were running pretty close behind me. My car fired back up and I took off. It seemed to be running better after I restarted it.
Coming out of lap one, I had lost some valuable time with my mechanical issues. The car running in third had made his way up to me and got by me in the second lap. Now, I was running in third, but determined to move my way up. As I learned the course, my lap times got faster and I felt more comfortable. I stayed on second place and was able to make the pass early in lap four. Now I was chasing down the car running in first. I clocked the fastest lap of the race and kept my foot on the gas. I made it through the timing shoot just in time to go out for one more lap. During the last lap, my car started to bog out again, so I had to turn it off and back on again on the fly. Despite the challenges I faced, I made up over 30 seconds and gave it everything I had, but it just wasn’t enough to catch first. I crossed the finish line in 2nd place.
I’ll be racing this coming weekend at the Dirt Series round 2 in my RZR 1000 at Pala Raceway. We’ve got some prep work to do on my RZR 800 before we head to Lake Havasu, AZ the following weekend for WORCS rounds 3 & 4.