By: Connor Moore

April 3rd, 2022, Taft, CA – Big Jumps and deep silt was the name of the game this weekend for round 4 of the Rocky Mountain ATV/MC WORCS series held at Honolulu Hills Raceway. This track is quite the opposite from our last round, with it being over double the time each lap coming in at about 9 minutes with only two competitors breaking into the high 8-minute marks. Brayden Baker would take home the win in the Pro Stock action on Saturday, and Beau Judge would win in Pro Production during the weekend’s final race on Sunday. 

On Saturday, The Pro Stock class finished the day with their race. In his Polaris RS1, Chris Johnson landed himself out front after the first turn with an impressive backfield behind him. Brayden Baker would get around Johnson rather quickly, taking the 1st spot and holding on to it for the entire race. Baker would have a few difficulties as he lost his brakes early on in the race and would make this high-speed course quite tricky, sliding into some of the corners allowing him not to run off course.

Clayton Winiecki would take the second spot in this race after a significant push towards Baker towards the end, reeling him in a bit each lap but ended up just over six seconds behind him when the checkered flag was waved. This was his first podium of the season with his best position being a 4th the round before. 

Jessy Nelson, who raced his first WORCS race of the season in Taft, would be the 3rd man on the podium, and he definitely had some fun spraying Baker with his champagne on the podium. Nelson had a pretty wild start getting pushed wide off one of the big jumps on the start and sliding off the right side of the jump but was able to stick the landing and continue his push to 3rd.

Beau Judge dominated pro Production as he would bring his Can-Am with a new tune and fresh engine and put them to work in the Honolulu Hills. Judge would come off the line with a bang as he almost had a car length gap by the first turn followed by Beau Baron, Jeremiah Wagner, and Taylor Cox. 

As the race progressed, Judge would have issues losing 4WD throughout the race, which in some of these deep silt caused quite a challenge, but that didn’t stop him as he would be able to keep the top spot on the podium. Baker, who decided to come out and race the Production class after his win in Pro Stock, started in the second line and went to work after the first lap. He was in 7th place, but he would keep hitting his marks and eventually find himself on the second spot on the podium. Wagner would get 3rd place as he lost his brakes entirely over the last jump of the entire race, causing himself to lose valuable time and come in 3rd.

Thank you to all the racers who came out this weekend to support WORCS Racing, and round 5 of the Rocky Mountain ATV/MC will return to the epic Orleans Arena in Las Vegas for a combined weekend of racing on April 29th-May 1st.