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Bak­ers­field, Ca: 10/27/09: Davi Haagsma had a stel­lar year, both in WORCS and fin­ish­ing up with the ITP series next month.  I had the plea­sure to work with him this year in 2009, doing his press and PR.  I am pleased to announce I have secured a deal with H&M Motor­sports and the Haagsma fam­ily for 2010 and hope­fully beyond.  They have a very detailed and orga­nized race team over here in Bak­ers­field with a very struc­tured pro­gram to help assist Davi with his 2010 Pro debut.  With a full sup­port of spon­sors, Davi will turn Pro come Jan­u­ary as he will begin his career at just 16 years of age.  I want to per­son­ally take this time and con­grat­u­late Davi on a suc­cess­ful 2009 sea­son.  Haagsma secured the WORCS Pro­duc­tion A class Cham­pi­onship, while fin­ish­ing 2nd O/A in Pro-Am with the #2 plate.  He rode hard, con­sis­tent and stayed focus to the end while gain­ing a ton of respect and fans along the way.  Below you will find his Octo­ber Newslet­ter along with (2) videos cap­tur­ing his year and final round at Mesquite.

H&M Motor­sports would like to thank their fol­low­ing spon­sors for sup­port­ing them in the 2009 sea­son and into 2010 and beyond: Kawasaki, Roll Design, Elka Sus­pen­sion, Cur­tis Sparks Rac­ing, Maxxis, Per­sonal Edge Fit­ness, Oneal, JR Pub­li­ca­tions, Hin­son Rac­ing, Max­ima Rac­ing, Mon­ster Energy, Decal Works, OGIO & ODI Grips

I would like to give a big thanks to Elka Sus­pen­sion and espe­cially Ethan. This was my first full sea­son of rac­ing in the New Mex­ico Desert Rac­ing Cham­pi­onship series and took first place in the novice class. My Elites were flaw­less and allowed me to push harder and ride faster. The shocks soaked up what­ever the ter­rain dished out includ­ing my occa­sional‚ mis­takes. Ethan used his exten­sive knowl­edge and worked with me to find an awe­some setup. Tak­ing his time, he answered every ques­tion I had mak­ing sure every­thing was taken care of. Again thank you for all the sup­port, I will be stay­ing with Elka for a long time.

Robert Ochsner

Octo­ber 20, 2009   Chan­dler, Ari­zona  — The last World Off Road Cham­pi­onship – ATV Series, was held in Mesquite, Nevada last week­end.  The last of 8 races on the West Coast proved to be excit­ing!  In the end, out of the pos­si­ble 8 titles in the CVT classes for the youth, Apex rid­ers took 7!

Pic­tured above from left to right is: Tan­ner Beck­man, rid­ing the Apex 250cc  (Shifter Open Sport, Shifter Open and 12–15 Shifter Cham­pion)  YOUTH CHAMPIONS:  Alex Ortiz (Stock 90, Stock 70 Cham­pion and 3rd Over­all in the Sport Class on a stock Apex 90); Devin Borges (2nd Over­all in the 90 Mod­i­fied Class); Travis Beck­man (70 Mod­i­fied Cham­pion and 2nd Over­all in the 70 Open Class); Hunter Schu­macher (50 Cham­pion) and Tyler Beck­man (90 Mod­i­fied and Sport Cham­pion)  Not pic­tured: Aidan Cash (3rd Over­all 50 Class); Blake Sor­tor (3rd Over­all in the 90 Mod­i­fied); Riley Snow (3rd Over­all 90 Stock); Trevor Sor­tor (2nd Over­all 90 Stock); and Tyler Bunker (91 Open Champion).

We are very proud of all the kids.  They tried real hard this year and it shows!  CONGRATULATIONS!  We look for­ward to a great 2010!

Teri Beck­man
Apex Atv

I installed Elka Sus­pen­sion front and rear shocks on my 2005 BMW R1200RT in Sep­tem­ber. On Oct. 2nd I took the bike to the “Last Chance Cam­pout” BMW rally in Oroville, WA all the way from Van­cou­ver, BC via Wash­ing­ton high­way 20 which is rated #1 by Des­ti­na­tion High­ways publishers.

The ride was fan­tanstic — I now know what “glued to the road” means. Except for increas­ing the pre­load, I left the fac­tory set­tings. I will exper­i­ment later, but I am most pleased. Thanks.

Jeff J.

Glen Helen Race­way in San Bernardino, CA was the host of round 7 of the WORCS series and many rac­ers will never for­get this race because of all the action that went on. – This race will mostly remem­bered because of the crash involv­ing Natalie and Eich­ner on Fri­days prac­tice ses­sion. – Both rid­ers were injured, but Eich­ner was the one that sus­tained the most seri­ous injuries. – We can only hope for a speedy recov­ery for this respected racer.

Beau Baron was in the top five off the line and was on a hard charge try­ing to work his way up in the rough Glen Helen sand and heat. Despite a rough and rut­ted track, Baron began to pick off the com­pe­ti­tion one by one until reach­ing the num­ber two spot at the mid­way point of the race.

Mike Cafro racing’s top racer man­aged to step on the podium for the 6th time this sea­son and he is cur­rently on the way to win­ning the championship.

As for Davi Haagsma, he con­tin­ued to impress every­one who wit­nessed his win. He bat­tled hard and strong and it paid off as he stepped on the podium with his No. 1 plate in hand. Davi Haagsma is a force to reckon with and we expect him to win the last race of this spec­tac­u­lar season.

Both Baron and Haagsma both race on Elka Suspension.

The Planetmoto.com Fines Dou­ble Rac­ing Thun­der­cat rocked the longest off road race in the USA. The Final Time for Rid­ers Reid Ruther­ford, Benn Ver­nadakis and Tony Vale­rio in this 1000-mile race was 35hours and 12minutes.

The Fines Dou­ble Rac­ing Team com­peted in the expert sport quad class on the Arc­tic Cat util­ity machine. The Thun­der­cat beat out 10 sport quads in this race and was the only util­ity quad finisher.

“This Race was gru­el­ing and a great way for us to pre­pare for our cham­pi­onship run at the SCORE Baja 1000 in Novem­ber,” said team cap­tain Reid Ruther­ford. The Thun­der­cat has won Every SCORE Baja race this year and is 52 points ahead of the clos­est com­peti­tor.  “The Can-Am teams have been no match for the reli­a­bil­ity of the Thun­der­cats 1000 cc power plant,” Ruther­ford added.

Once again, the Fines Dou­ble Rac­ing Team is accept­ing dona­tions to take down to the Door of Faith orphan­age near Ense­nada Mex­ico. If you are inter­ested in donat­ing please con­tact us at www.planetmoto.com . This is a great place that needs your help. Please look them up at www.dofo.org .

Planet Motor­sports and Fines Dou­ble Rac­ing thank all their spon­sors and sup­port crew.

Arc­tic Cat, ROX Ris­ers, DWT, Motion Pro, Vision X lights, Green Ball Tires, Speed­w­erx, Planet Motor­sports, Klim, Elka. Bradley’s Race works, Spi­der Grips, Mon­trose Signs—— Steve Rudd, Danny Rudd,  Alex Waters, Phil Heck, Ryan Best, Chris Evans, Jason Cook, Amy Ruther­ford, Blake Ruther­ford, Jes­sica Ruther­ford, Kait­lyn Ruther­ford,  Ron Craft, Tommy Craft, Brent Falin, Brad Falin,  Mer­lin Ladd, Baja Pits,  Dee Ver­nadakis, Ron Ruther­ford, Richard Schwarten,  Ed Krey and Doug Heyduk.

Click Link for more VTR Pho­tos: http://s974.photobucket.com/albums/ae223/bajathundercat/2009%20Vegas%20to%20Reno/

Baja 500 photos: http://s974.photobucket.com/albums/ae223/bajathundercat/

www.finesdoubleracing.com

www.planetmoto.com

Mesquite Nevada was home to the BITD Bilek Rac­ing Sil­ver State 300 off road race dur­ing the week-end of Sep­tem­ber 26. This race marked the fifth race for the UTV’s 2009 seven race cham­pi­onship series. Just a few short weeks after the mon­u­men­tal Vegas to Reno 1000 mile race the Jagged X / Polaris Rac­ing Team had to do bat­tle once again and take on another 321 miles of Nevada desert. The weather was a very pleas­ant 65 degrees at the start­ing line Sat­ur­day where there was a sur­pris­ing field of 10 utvs rep­re­sent­ing 4 man­u­fac­tur­ers in attendance.

The 1919 RZR S pulled the num­ber 4 start­ing posi­tion right behind the Bi-Polar Rac­ing Arc­tic Cat 1000. — The Jagged X RZR was dri­ven by Bran­don Schueler and his nav­i­ga­tor was Mike West. This race was an incred­i­bly flaw­less race for the Polaris Rac­ing team, run­ning the entire race with the only stops being sched­uled fuel pits. By the first pit they were run­ning in the 2nd posi­tion with the 1947 leader in sight. Com­ing into the 4th pit area Bran­don was able to get by the Cat to take the lead and hold it for the remain­ing 160 miles. In the end the1919 Polaris RZR S was able to cross the fin­ish line a cou­ple min­utes ahead of the sec­ond place finisher.

The next BITD race is only three weeks away on Octo­ber 17th in Primm, NV. Stay tuned to see how this excit­ing sea­son turns out.

We team would like to thank Elka Sus­pen­sion — Your ded­i­ca­tion to giv­ing us the best sus­pen­sion for every rac­ing condition.

First of all I would like to per­son­ally thank Elka Sus­pen­sion for assem­bling the great­est field tech­ni­cian team I have ever had the plea­sure to deal with. I am new to the rac­ing series, but have dealt in the cus­tomer ser­vice related field for years and was truly astounded by the pro­fes­sion­al­ism and atten­tion to detail these two gen­tle­men dis­played at the GNCC Yad­kinville Stomp this past weekend.

Jeff Hor­ton and Jay Gobel’s unre­lent­ing ded­i­ca­tion was shown by their con­tin­u­ous efforts into the early hours of Sat­ur­day morn­ing to per­fect the sus­pen­sion on my YFZ450. They could have eas­ily asked me to come back in the morn­ing to fin­ish the job, but con­tin­ued to work on my quad so that it would be per­fectly race ready with­out regards to how much “mid­night oil” they burned to ensure it hap­pened. I would have com­pletely under­stood com­ing back in the morn­ing since every other ven­dor was shut down and had been asleep for a long while. Jeff’s per­sonal drive for per­fec­tion when set­ting up my sus­pen­sion far exceeded my expectations; he con­tin­ued to improve the setup when I thought it couldn’t get any bet­ter, his hands-on exper­tise and Jay’s vast tech­ni­cal knowl­edge truly made this week­ends expe­ri­ence an excep­tional one. These two gen­tle­men should be greatly com­mended for their ded­i­ca­tion to cus­tomer ser­vice and the Elka brand.

I would have never expected the degree of com­mit­ment to excel­lence in the over­all cus­tomer expe­ri­ence when help­ing a first year racer with ser­vic­ing used equip­ment, and based solely on this expe­ri­ence I wouldn’t dream of rid­ing on any­thing but Elka Sus­pen­sion for as long as I race. These two gen­tle­men have ensured that Elka ser­vice has and will con­tinue to exceed rac­ers expec­ta­tions presently and for the many years to come.

Respect­fully submitted,

Allen S. Carpenter

Just turned 15 years old, Tan­ner Beck­man #154 is cur­rently vying for 3 National Cham­pi­onships in the World Off Road Cham­pi­onship Series (WORCS).  Tan­ner on his Apex 250F quad with a LONESTAR designed chas­sis has taken the lead in the 12–15 Open Sport, Shifter Open Sport and Shifter Open Liq­uid Cooled classes.  The last class was cre­ated from the Shifter Open class after numer­ous com­plaints that liq­uid cooled engines were too fast to com­pete against air cooled motors. (It was an open class right?)  Tan­ner on his Apex com­petes in the Open Classes since his Apex 250cc is not in pro­duc­tion yet.  Near the begin­ning of the series Tan­ner saw some mechan­i­cal failures.

Tan­ner had been prepar­ing his own quad for the races, (his dad was busy with the 3 other broth­ers).  Finally Tan­ners dad sought out help from KENZ CYCLE TECH in Mesa, Ari­zona. Since Ken has been prep­ping the 250 and doing the motor work, mechan­i­cal fail­ures are all but gone and the cham­pi­onship is up to Tan­ner.  The mechanic at Kenz Cycle Tech is metic­u­lous and very detail ori­ented!  What a bless­ing for Tan­ner (and his dad)!  It also helped when Elka showed up and dialed in his ELKA shocks!

Tan­ner con­tin­ues to face adversity. At the last race, Glen Helen in South­ern Cal­i­for­nia,  Tan­ner fin­ished the last 2 laps with 2 flat rear tires.  Some­how Tan­ner man­aged to keep his lead and take 1st.  In the Sun­day race, Tan­ner and a few other rac­ers took a wrong turn on a poorly marked track.  After a cor­rec­tion and then get­ting stuck, Tan­ner was in dead last place.  He came back to win the 50 minute race!   Many spec­ta­tors and par­ents have com­mented on Tan­ners abil­ity to come from behind and take the 1st posi­tion.   Tan­ner is fun to watch and he has that “never give up” atti­tude.  The race in Mesquite, Nevada in Octo­ber will final­ize the Series.  Next year Tan­ner hopes to race a 450cc.  Good Luck Tan­ner!  Thanks to Ken and Randy @ Kenz Cycle Tech and Tony @ ELKA!

Teri Beck­man
Apex Fac­tory Rac­ing Team Manager