Blayne Thompson wins the Dirt Diggers Motorcycle Club Taft Grand Prix after Colton Udall is penalized.
The race isn’t always over at the checkered flag.
That was the lesson at the Taft Grand Prix hosted by the Dirt Diggers Motorcycle Club at Honolulu Hills Raceway in Taft, California, round two of the AMA District 37/MSR Big 6 Grand Prix Series.
In the 90-minute AMA Big 6 West Coast Grand Prix (WCGP) Series feature race, Ox Motorsports Honda rider Colton Udall slipped past leader Blayne Thompson during the Fasthouse Yamaha rider’s pit stop and managed to stay just out of reach in the remaining couple laps. However, race officials determined that when Udall had pitted, he took a sharp left at some course arrows on pit row, so instead of following pit row, Udall apparently mistook how hard of a left he was supposed to make and climbed up a huge berm on the outside of a turn immediately following the landing off a big table-top jump.
Understandably disappointed, reigning series champion Udall can take solace in the fact that second is a huge step up from the seventh place he finished at the opening round three weeks ago.
For Fasthouse Yamaha’s Thompson, the race could’ve come down to his pit stop which was slightly slower than the one Udall’s crew gave him.
“We were doing really great before and after the pit,” Thompson said. “I ended catching back up [to Udall]; if I [would’ve] had one more lap, I would’ve ended up getting him, but I didn’t have the time. I’m ecstatic with the way I rode. If I keep riding like this all year, I think I can win a championship, for sure.”
Rocky Mountain ATV/MC Kawasaki-mounted Robby Bell had a pretty good race with a few ups and downs to finish third. Bell finished 51 seconds ahead of teammate Justin Seeds, who had to come back from a fairly poor start.
Ox Motorsports Honda’s Justin Jones ran fourth in the early going but settled for fifth at the finish, still feeling the huge get-off he took last week at the WORCS race. Teammate Mark Samuels came back from being taken out in the first turn to sixth while early leader Eric Yorba (the 2014 series champ) dropped back to seventh on his Maxxis/FMF/RPM Racing KTM, 14 seconds ahead of Thousand Oaks Powersports Yamaha’s Michael Del Fante.
Defending WCGP Pro II champ Trevor Stewart got back on a 250 after riding a 450 at round one and finished ninth overall to win WCGP Pro II once again, but he did it on a new bike, a TM 250 MX he’d picked up just two days before the race.
Maxxis Yamaha-mounted Jeff Loop came back from the first-turn melee to claim 10th overall and ninth Pro.
2016 AMA District 37/MSR Big 6 Grand Prix Series
Dirt Diggers Motorcycle Club Grand Prix
Honolulu Hills Raceway
Taft, California
Results: February 7, 2016 (Round 2 of 8)
WCGP Int/Exp/Pro
1. Blayne Thompson-Yam
2. Colton Udall-Hon
3. Robby Bell-Kaw
4. Justin Seeds-Kaw
5. Justin Jones-Hon
6. Mark Samuels-Hon
7. ERic Yorba-KTM
8. Michael Del Fante-Yam
9. Trevor Stewart-TM
10. Jeff Loop
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