Minocqua Yamaha's Japanese Snocross champ Yuji Nakazawa made his way to the winner's circle at the 45th Eagle River Snowmobile World Championships, Jan. 17-20. In West Yellowstone, Mont., 1300 miles away, Yamaha Factory Snocross rider Steve Taylor brought his FX Nytro to a solid fourth in the Pro Open event at round three of the WPSA National Series and teammate Cory Davis brought his FX Nytro to 13th in the Semi-Pro Open competition.
Nakazawa not only finished 1-3 in his qualifiers, but holeshot the field and led the final moto wire to wire. "The race track conditions were hard-packed and the Yamaha 4-stroke power delivered the needed torque and gave us the holeshot," Masa Saito, Minocqua Yamaha's Race Team Manager, states.
The West Yellowstone National final had been snowed out on Sunday and rescheduled to be completed on Monday. With strong runs in his qualifier races, Steve Taylor was confident going into the main event. "I had a third, a second, and a fifth which put me right to the front row in the main, so qualifying went pretty good!" he says. "I holeshot one qualifier yesterday, and was top three on the start in the rest of the qualifiers. We've got the suspension working much better this week too, so everything was great." The team had been busy testing during the week and was well prepared for the race. "We spent quite a lot of time this week getting the sleds dialed in and our practice time on the track really helped," says Cory Davis. That effort paid off for Davis in his qualifiers too.
In the main event Taylor got fourth place in Pro Open, while Davis overcame some vision problems with snow dust to finish 13th in Semi-Pro Open.
Yamaha Factory Snocross team sponsors include Yamaha, Yamalube, FXR, Camoplast, Fox Racing Shox, Studboy, Fly Racing and GYTR.
More info:
www.yamaha-motor.com