Grand Lake, Colorado – January 4, 2009 – With over eighty-eight thousand cubic yards of snow moved from the high Rocky Mountains, the snowmobile capital of Colorado and the Xtreme Mountain Racing season roared to life this first weekend of the new year! Riders old, and many new to racing came out to test their skills and machines, and already it looks like XMR is going to have a great season of racing!
It was the Wes Selby show this opening weekend, as the hometown hero arrived back from nationals to dominate the XMR races. Selby, who calls Grand Lake home, almost effortlessly took the wins in the Semi-Pro Stock and Semi-Pro open events of the weekend, often not even trying for the holeshot, but rather working through the pack for sport. Selby was consistently followed by teammate Taylor Meuwissen, and Granby, Colorado local Zach Acord, who claimed second and third in both classes respectively.
It was a good weekend to be a “Wes” in racing across the board. Wesley Chapman, of Craig, Colorado, who raced the first few races of his career last season, came out strong to claim not one, but two Junior class wins in Grand Lake. Likewise, Wesley Sandoval raced his first race ever and took the prize in the Beginner Stock class over healthy competition from a slew of first time riders!
Young veteran Taylor Dyess rode more than most this weekend and while he tried his luck in the Semi-Pro class, Dyess showed his best performance in the Sport and Junior classes where he garnered three first place finishes over the course of the weekend. Even the 120 riders rode hard on what was a big track for them – Tallyn Wagner, Logan Montgomery and Cameron Thomas all had wins and could likely be the future of snocross.
XMR thanks all the riders and teams for the great racing action that started the season right and XMR thanks all those that made this first race of the season such a success, especially Jolstad Motorsports. XMR will be back in Grand Lake in February as this is just the beginning of an action packed winter full of high flying sno-cross in the West. Next week XMR will take a break as most riders will be at the ISOC Western National in Sandy, Utah but XMR will pick up again in Eagle, Colorado on January 16th and 17th. As always, more information on XMR sno-cross can be found on the XMR website at www.xmrracing.com.
