John Natalie, Jr. and Jesse West won the Pro portions of the WPSA PowerSports ATV Tour season opening ITP Tires Southern Open Championship races Sunday at Silver Dollar Raceway. The race will be telecast on ESPN2 on Saturday, June 16 at 1 p.m. EDT.

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Natalie (No. 13 ELKA, Maxxis/Honda) took the lead after winning the $1,000 QUAD Magazine Holeshot Award, and left the rest of the field in his dust. He won the event by nearly 11 seconds, ahead of Doug Gust (No. 55 Team Rockstar, MSR, Pro Taper, Yoshimura/Suzuki) and Dustin Wimmer (No. 191 MSR, Pro Taper, Yoshimura/Suzuki).

"Sitting out most of last year and watching these other guys was tough," said Natalie, who after winning the first two races last season was sidelined by a severely broken thumb. "I worked through the pain, tried to pick up where I left off, and I think I did that. It hurt more, sitting on the sidelines last year, than the actual injury.

"I taught myself not to look back," said Natalie. "I count on my mechanic to tell me what I'm doing. I try to use the philosophy of focus forward."J

West (No. 888 ITP Tires, Oil Boyz/Arctic Cat) was elevated to first in the QuadTerrain Challenge Pro Stock final when Scott Kilby (No. 207 Warnert Racing/Can-Am), who timed first, was penalized two positions for cutting the course. The penalty moved Daryl Rath (No. 67 Rath Racing/Arctic Cat) to second. Kilby placed third after winning the $1,000 Holeshot Technologies Rock'n'Roll Award for being first out of the track's rock crawl section.

"I'm a little bit disappointed in the way it happened, but I had a clean race, and I did what I had to do," said West. "I'm in great shape and I feel great out there. I wish they'd bump it up to 20 laps.

"The holeshot winner usually doesn't win in QuadTerrain Challenge," explained West. "Instead, the winner is usually the guy who makes the least mistakes. I bounced back from some mistakes I made at the beginning, and, luckily I got the win."J

Josh Creamer (No. 9 Monster Energy Drink/Kawasaki) won the $500 ATVSource.com Biggest Mover Award for moving up the most positions from his qualifying spot to his seventh-place finish in the SuperQuad Pro 450 race. Josh West (No. 788 ITP Tires, Oil Boyz/Arctic Cat) won the same award in QuadTerrain Challenge event, also earning a $500 bonus.