World PowerSports Snowmobile Tour 05-06 Race Recap - Winnipeg Snocross
March 01, 2006
Provided by Jamie Anseeuw of
BMRT, Race Team Manager
Round 7 of the WPSA tour brought the team to Winnipeg, MB, Canada,
a “home town race” for the team as their team headquarters
is only a few minutes away in Oak Bluff, MB.
The Winnipeg Goldeyes Baseball team stadium was the venue for this
round and what a great facility. Although the track was small it still
took the racers over 30 second to traverse all of the tricky turns
and jumps. Spectator viewing was spectacular, and the backdrop of
the 40 story office buildings behind the stadium offered a new and
unique look to a snowcross event.
In semi-pro stock, all three team riders qualified for the main.
Katejun Coonishish got the holeshot with Turcotte slotted in 5th,
Elam towards the rear. In the second corner, Katejun got knocked off
of the track and his race was over, recovering for a 13th place finish.
Brett (Turotte) took advantage of the turmoil in the second corner
and emerged with the lead, and held it to the finish. Elam worked
hard all moto working his way to 4th and narrowly missing the final
podium position at the checkered flag.
Pro Stock qualifying ended with Taylor and Morgan front row and Allard
back row for the final. Ross Martin emerged from the first corner
with Shaun Crapo after him….Morgan was upside down, Taylor and
Allard near the back. Crapo passed Martin for the lead and those two
held their positions to the end. Taylor and Allard worked hard throughout
the race working up to 7th and 8th respectively, Morgan righted himself,
and finished in 13th.
Semi-pro Open had Elam watching from the sidelines……even
though the youngster from Idaho had qualified well with three 2nd
place finishes, forgetting to install the electronic transponder for
his first heat forced WPSA to score him last, which put Willie in
the LCQ, and a frozen throttle in that race kept him from transferring
to the final. At the start of the final DJ Ekre jumped out front with
Katejun Coonishish on his tail, Turcotte was midpack from a backrow
start. Katejun and DJ Ekre waged a battle that continued to just before
the last lap flag, when Katejun put together a great run through the
tricky timing section heading towards the home plate turn. This put
him in a position to make an aggressive inside pass on DJ, which caused
the Arctic Cat rider to spill effectively putting Katejun in position
to cruise to the checkers and at the same time, taking him off of
DJ Ekre’s x-mas card list. Brett meanwhile had been working
hard picking off riders and on the last lap passed his way into second
for a one, two BMRT finish.
Pro Open got underway and once again Morgan got into trouble early
getting pushed off the track, but this time recovering quickly. Allard
and Taylor were running mid pack and Morgan quickly caught up to this
group. Taylor came off hard on the backstretch and finished 14th ,
Morgan continued to work over his teammate Allard for several laps,
finally clearing the Quebec rider mid race. Morgan continued to pickoff
riders and at the race end, was just a few feet shy of a podium, Allard
ended up in 7th.
The semi-pro’s had a great event scoring 3 podiums and while
the pro riders on the team had a less than stellor weekend, none got
hurt, and they’ll be even hungrier for the 8th round coming
up at the home of the Green Bay Packers football team in Green Bay,
WI.
