Mitchell Masters Margate

John Mitchell

Team ATV World Yamaha’s John Mitchell displayed incredible strength and stamina to win all six of his Pro Quad races over two days at the QRA’s Margate Big Sky Beachcross. He also took part in the six-race solo bike event, finishing fourth overall, despite not going out to contest the final race.

With very strong winds and near freezing conditions, John was getting good starts near the front and his YamahaYFZ450 was running perfectly. It only had an oil change since John rode it to second place at the Weston Beach race the previous month.
John won all six of the quad races, winning by half a lap in the first race! He even won one of the five solo events taking him to a total of five hours racing in one weekend.

Once John had found time to change out of his MX gear for his more traditional kilt, he said “Riding for five hours was physically demanding, especially in those weather conditions. Drinking Hi5 energy drinks helped between motos, as did the total reliability of the Yamaha YFZ450. Also, big thanks to Gaynor and Tony Nash for organising such a great event!”

Thanks again for all the support from sponsors who along with their outstanding products have helped develop a Championship winning team for the 2008 season.

BIG SKY BEACH-CROSS

Margate, Kent (QRA)
Pro Quad: 1 John Mitchell (450 ATV World Yamaha) 150 points, 2 Giles Davis (450 Suzuki) 126, 3 Oli Sansom (450 Cromwell Trucks Yamaha) 106, 4 Geoff Sharp (450 Honda) 101, 5 Pete Gallagher (450 Honda) 89, 6 Julian Mawbey (450 Suzuki).

Honda Off-Road racers claimed two class victories and four podiums at Ermelo Toyota 400

Ermelo Toyota 400, 31 October – 1 November 2008
Final Round of the SA National Off-road Motorcycle and Quad Championships

Off-road race information :
Route : 420 kilometres (60km time-trail; 2x 120km loop + 2x 30km loop + 1x 60km loop)
Terrain : Rocky, hard with some fast sections
Weather : Rainy at first, humid and windy.

hot Quad Category
In the national quad category, Honda Race Nation Quad Revolution scored a class victory and three podium positions.

It was the first Open Class victory for the new Honda TRX 700XX in the national off-road quad championship with Paulo Costa taking the laurels. Costa started the main race in 18th place overall after a 60 kilometre time-trail and finished 5th overall with the Honda with Elka independent rear-suspension that brought him home after a trouble-free 360 kilometres on Saturday.

There were more podium positions when the young Juan Coetzee finished third overall with the Honda TRX450 after starting the race in 8th place. Coetzee lost time with two flat tyres. He claimed the 3rd place in the competitive Pro 450 Class and unofficial scoring saw him finishing the 2008 season in third place overall and fourth in the Pro 450 Class championship.

The national quad category was won by Brian Baragwanath with Vincent Loubser second.

Rider Nr L13 Juan Coetzee – Honda Race Nation Quad Revolution Elka
It was the second national off-road racing season for Juan Coetzee, the scholar from Kinross and son of one of South Africa’s quad racing pioneers, Billy Coetzee, who proved the importance of consistency. He finished six of the eight national events this year and brought his trusty Race Nation Quad Revolution Honda TRX450 home time after time to bag valuable points towards the Pro 450 Class championship and the overall standings. His results during 2008 include a fourth place at the Quad Roof of Africa and the Caledon 400.

Quotes
Quad competitor Nr L58 – Paulo Costa : “If you’ve finished the 2008 Ermelo Toyota 400, you and your machine are strong. It was a tough event, but my Honda TRX 700XX did not give any problems. The quad was perfectly tuned and with the long-range fuel tank, we could skip fuel point. And the amount of rocks and rough terrain suited the  Elka independent rear suspension perfectly.”

Holy cow what a race!!
For Desert Toyz Rhino Race Team this was the most important race of the season. Due to a computer malfunction we were stripped of our second place points position and moved to third. The first place points position was out of reach, but we still had a chance at second place. To accomplish that, we would have to finish ahead of Team 1905. Team 1905 had drawn the pole position which made it even more difficult to beat them. The starting format for this race was different from all the others. The format was, two UTV’s starting off the line side by side every thirty seconds. We started in the second row, on the outside next to Team 1944. We pulled the hole shot on 1944 and the race was on!!

Each lap was 50 miles and our race was three laps. It was smooth sailing until race mile nine, when we hit a series of whoops, used up our 8 inches of rear wheel travel and did four nose wheelies in a row!! My wife was white-knuckling the grab bar and yelled “settle down Cowboy, we got a long ways to go”. At around rm 13 Team 1946 passed us ,in the rough, like we were standing still. Then at rm 17 Team 1919 passed us. After about a mile we caught 1919 and passed them back. We only went one more mile and 1919 passed us back. Only a few miles later we started seeing dust and spotted Team 1905, the team we had to beat. My heart was pounding and I couldn’t believe we were catching them so soon. Within a mile or two we had caught them and were right on their bumper. We were in a very rocky section and there was really no place for them to pull over, so we followed them for 6 miles. Finally the course opened up, so we ran up on them and gave them a little “nerf”, and they immediately pulled over and let us pass. We only went 2 miles before they caught us and passed us back. They stayed about a quarter mile ahead of us all the way into the pits. They had to stop for gas and we didn’t. We passed them in the pits and never saw them again. The rest of lap two we ran hard and fast, we were determined to stay ahead of 1905. We starting Lap 3, our last lap, and were so excited that 1905 had not caught us. We still had a shot at the second place points position. I told my as we left the pits “all we have to do is run a clean lap with no mistakes”. At race mile 3 our pit crew called us on the radio telling us we were in third place and that the second place team had lost a rear axle nut and were stopped on the course. We soon passed them on the side of the course and they were still trying to fix it. Now in second place for the race and the points championship we were thrilled!! We raced the last lap clean with the exception of one more nose wheelie only a thousand feet from the finish line and my wife scolded me for that as we crossed the line.

I have to say thank you to my wife for great navigation, my brother Darren for his help, my pit crew for great service, and “Buttons” my race prep helper for working late nights. Thanks to all the UTV racers that made this a great event. Thank you to my sponsors: Yamaha Motor Corp., Maxxis Tires, Elka Shocks, Black Rhino, OMF Wheels, Web Cams, PWR Radiators, Powroll, Yoshimura Exhaust, PCI Race Radios, ACRO Lights, Full Bore Plastic, JP Precision Brake lines, Fat Katz skid plates and Desert Toyz. What a great 2008 series!!

It sure feels great to be the 2008 Best In The Desert points champion runner-up. Many “long travel” Rhinos came out and tryed to beat us. In the end, it was the combination of Elka Shocks, stock Yamaha a-rms, great driving, an awsome pit crew, a fast, reliable engine and the best sponsors that brought us our 2nd place position in the points championship!!

Hello Elka guys,

My name is Robin Stover. I am the Feature Editor of Four Wheeler Magazine. I did a story in SideBySource magazine recently that featured your adjustable remote reservoir Rhino shocks paired up with Pure Performance’s mid-travel suspension system.

I am so impressed with your shocks that I wanted to personally write you and say thanks and also convey how well they have performed thus far. The owner of the Rhino we used in the story typically drives it during regular hunting trips and the occasional weekend sand dune run. He tells me all the time how awesome the shocks are and how much nicer his Rhino rides thanks to them. I though I should share this with you and let you know that I am seriously considering Elka shocks for another UTV build up.

As you might expect I test a whole lot of products for the off-road industry, and I can tell you very few come close to the quality of your shocks. I’m not sure if you actually got a chance to see the magazine article or not. SideBySource is bound inside Off-Road magazine each month. It is currently on newsstands.

Thanks again for building such a high quality product.

Yours truly,
Robin Stover

Winning the overall ATV and Class 25 victory was the #8A team of Wayne Matlock, El Cajon, Calif./Harold Goodman, Brownstown, Mich./Marc Spaeth, Ramona, Calif./West Miller, Fallbrook, Calif., with a championship time of 14:47:25, averaging 42.69mph in a Honda TRX700XX. Matlock started and rode to RM 120, Goodman rode to RM 294, Spaeth rode to RM 350, Matlock rode to 400, Goodman rode to RM 460, Miller rode to RM 600 and Matlock finished. The talented team swept all three SCORE Baja races this season to earn the season point title in their class.
Matlock said: “We didn’t have too many problems – we had little hiccups here and there but all in all, everybody rode terrific today. We’d get sections where we’d make up a lot of time and then we’d had a little issue and set us back and we kept coming through it. Everyone did a terrific job and I can’t believe it. We were seconds apart from 1A (Danny Prather) all day long.”

Pro ATVs Top 5
1. Wayne Matlock, El Cajon, Calif./Harold Goodman, Brownstown, Mich./Marc Spaeth, Ramona, Calif./Wes Miller, Fallbrook, Calif., Honda TRX700XX, 14:47:25 (42.69 mph) (Class 25)

2. Danny Prather, Ramona, Calif./Mike Cafro, Bonsall, Calif./Chad Prull, Laveen, Ariz./Levi Marana, Hemet, Calif., Honda TRX700XX, 14:56:24 (42.26 mph) (Class 25)

3. Stefano Caputo, San Felipe, Mexico (Italy)/Felipe Velez, San Felipe, Mexico/Heriberto Marquez, Ensenada, Mexico/Nick Destaut, San Felipe, Mexico/Alfonso Alonzo, Vicente Guerrero, Mexico, Honda TRX450R, 16:14:27 (138.87 mph) (Class 25)

4. Greg Row, Alpine, Calif./Travis Dillon, Santee, Calif./Tony Baker, Alpine, Calif./Rich Kappel, Remsenburg, N.Y., Bombardier DS650, 16:30:15 (38.25 mph) (Class 25)

5. Craig Christy, Burbank, Calif./ Steve Abrego, Covina, Calif./David Scott, Belen, N.M., Honda TRX450R, 16:57:53 (37.22 mph) (Class 24)