Posted July 5, 2007

Joe Byrd leads Patrick Brown and Jeremy Lawson. The three riders filled the podium in both motos.

Byrd Finishes 1-1 at Muddy Creek

The tacky track at Muddy Creek Raceway came together best for defending champion Joe Byrd, who grabbed both holeshots en route to his 1-1 sweep at round nine of the 2007 ITP/Moose Racing ATVA MX Series Championship.

Jeremy Lawson went 2-2, and Patrick Brown finished 3-3.

The crew at Victory Sports became friends with ATVs, re-facing the jumps and widening out the turns, but the track tightened back up after the steady rain rolled in Friday and again on Saturday.

"Victory Sports did an awesome job considering what they had to work with," Byrd said from the podium. "Mother Nature narrowed up the track quite a bit for us. The holeshot was very important this weekend, and I just got lucky and pulled a couple of them."

Other action Heather Byrd finished 1-1 to take the Pro Women's class win. Her strategy of keeping it between the muddy patches paid off as she looks toward the championship overall. The Joe Byrd Riding School must be paying off! Clay Holmes went 2-1 for the overall in Pro Am, working the track conditions to his favor. "The track was better today; it was horrible yesterday," Holmes said. "I got a real good start [in the second moto.] I had a pretty good-sized lead at the finish, I guess it was a few second lead. It was a real good race." Justin Norman swept the Open A class with a 1-1, turning his fastest lap over 2:07 on Sunday. "I got to be stoked after the mud race on Saturday and coming out and having good track conditions today," Norman said. "I'm really happy how my bike performed. My PEP shocks work great, but we had to make them work better for this track. Nate McNett from McNett performance really helped me out. I did pretty well in the mud yesterday on my stock tires. The track was kind of tight, but I'm actually more stoked about this win because it took a lot of bike setup, so I'm pretty happy with this one."

Byrd opted out of the Saturday morning practice. Come race day, Byrd had first gate pick as the series points leader.

In the first moto, Byrd led Brown and Lawson through the first-turn rhythm section, with Byrd pulling a look-back over the downhill table. The top two tightened the gap as Lawson held off momentarily. Brown was battling hard to get around Byrd, while Lawson waited it out. On lap two, Brown was 0.26 seconds off Byrd's pace, the closest recorded.

Once Brown had backed off behind the leader, Lawson turned on the charge, taking the inside away from Brown over the downhill double. Inspired, Lawson leapt on, closing on Byrd for another attack. Lawson made contact with the leader going into the horseshoe. The two riders came to a halt when Byrd was knocked sideways.

Lawson "just went in hard into the turn," Byrd said. "Rubbing's racing. You're going to do that. You're not going to be out there with a tape measure saying, ‘Oh, that's two inches too close.' I overturned—well, braked too hard in the turn. He went in deep and that's just racing. I just looked at him, and waited for him to back up, so I could go on. Nothing was said. That's just part of racing and I wouldn't expect anything less."

Right away, Brown caught the leader's pace, and the top three checked out from Justin Bres and Travis Spader in the top five.

"When you come to the race, everybody picks it up a notch," Brown said. "Even I beat my own fastest lap time by two seconds when it came to the main. The Pro class out here, we're all going to ride on that edge and we're going to be following each other close because every millisecond's the difference. If he makes a mistake, and he's that much closer, it's that much easier to go around."

In Moto 2, Byrd nailed the holeshot through the first section, and Lawson found first by the green flag, but Byrd had the lead on lap 2, leaving Lawson 0.277 seconds off. The next lap, Byrd turned the fastest time of the weekend with a 1:57.

Lawson admitted that training stymied his efforts for the overall. "In the double-doubles over there, [Byrd] just went a little wide and I took the inside, that's about all I had," Lawson said. "I don't know what happened in the second moto. I wasn't riding over the edge; I wasn't making too many mistakes or crashing or whatever. I just didn't feel it—I just couldn't get my breath, I guess, so we'll go back and try harder. You can only go for so long, and it is motocross and you peak, and you try to peak again and it just happens. You get tired of training and you just have to take it and go again."

Brown put the only Yamaha on the podium. "Yeah, it really worked in by the end of the day here. It got real, real slick, and it was just a good, hard racetrack. Third place isn't that bad. The bike just came in, and it was working great. It was all just coming to at the end of the moto. I wish I could have been up a little higher on the box, but third place, I will take it. It's not one of my favorite tracks out there, but I gotta race all of them—we all have our favorites."

 

Overall results, Muddy Creek
1	Joe Byrd	1-1
2	Jeremy Lawson	2-2
3	Pat Brown	3-3
4	Travis Spader	6-4
5	Justin Bres	4-6
6	Michael Brown	5-5
7	Justin Bush	8-7
8	Christopher Tait	7-8

 

Rider	Points	Wins
Joe Byrd	398	5
Jeremy Lawson	380	3
Pat Brown	299
Michael Brown	212
Justin Bres	204	1

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