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Jarrod McClure and Harlen Foley were battling for the 2nd Spot, after the pair of them were able to recover quickly from poor starts and work their way through the pack, which took some time and had them almost two minutes behind Mark Rhodes after the 1st lap.
Doug Henke also was a man on mission as he held down 5th Overall with a 36:59 lap time, but only a held a minute lead over Kevin Johnston in 2nd Place.
Stock Class newcomer, Todd Krupinski held the 2nd spot early in the lap until he found himself hung up in a rut, which dropped him back to 4th place, and his troubles just began as he would drop back to 19th by the end of the lap two.
With Stephanie out of the race, Erika Jones was able to quickly move up into 3rd Place with a two minute gap between her and Stefanie Verkade, but that gap quickly disappeared as Stefanie picked up speed and moved to within a few seconds of Erika by the end of the second lap.
Erika Jones goes over the bridge in her 2nd lap while Stepfanie Verkade is going under the bridge to complete her 1st lap
Neil Belcher and his Hybrid Polaris/250R was up to 3rd place and only 24 seconds behind Kevin Johnston after the first lap in the Utility Unlimited Class, but his race day would end in the 2nd lap after experiencing mechanical issues.
Marcus Gonzalez switched to his Vforce to compete at the Wisp in the Stock Class after his Honda 450R locked up on him at the Mountaineer, and he was off to a great start early in the race, but he had dropped back to 18th by the end of the 1st lap.
The track was claiming rider after rider early in the race and unfortunately, Jesse Way, ended up wrecking and breaking his Arm/Wrist, which took him out of the race as he joined a list of just under 100 riders that only completed one lap or less in the race, which was 1/3 of all the morning riders.
ATVriders.com Journalist, Fred Mudd, also was one of the unlucky ones as well after getting off to a great start in the morning, he wrecked hard, which took him out of the race as well.
Mark Rhodes seemed to be immune to the rough conditions as he maintained a huge Overall lead in a repeat performance to his Overall Win last year at the Wisp.
Harlen Foley was able to pass Jarrod McClure when he became stuck on a hill, and he quickly started passing rider after rider trying to track down Mark Rhodes in the lead until he encountered a huge bottleneck of atleast 50+ ATVs.
Riders were lined up waiting for their turn at climbing a root covered hill that had several riders stuck and turned sideways on the hill, which included Traci Cecco.
Harlen worked his way through the riders to get his chance at the hill, but it slowed him down enough that Chris Neal was able to make up the over minute gap the seperated them at the beginning of the lap and move in behind him.
Chris yelled at Harlen to "Go" and try to make it up the hill, but Harlen didn't see any open lines, so Chris went around him and made his attempt and was hungup. Harlen found and opening and began the climb to the top to maintain the 2nd spot behind Mark Rhodes and moved into 2 Overall passing Traci Cecco and Angel Atwell.
In frustration of sitting in the bottleneck, Harlen decided to pick up the speed to try to catch Mark, which would cost him big time.
By the end of the 2nd lap, Chris Neal moved to within 2 minutes of Mark Rhodes recording the fastest 2nd lap time of anybody, and Harlen held onto the 3rd Overall Spot only 34 seconds behind Chris Neal.Quote:
"I knew that I lost some valuble time in the bottleneck, and I now had Chris Neal right behind me, so I decided to pick up the speed. Unfortunately, a log was kickec out onto the track that was in the line that I took the lap before, so I was forced to the left into the rocks, which wasn't a good combination with speed on a downhill.
My front wheel jerked sideways and I found myself flying over the handlebars and landing on top of a rock that knocked the wind out of me as it caught me right under the arm pit.
As I got up, Chris Neal rode by asking if I were OK, and I couldn't even respond, but I quickly shock it off ,and erased the pain from my mind. I jumped back on the Suzuki and amazingly there wasn't any major damage except the rear wheel was caved in on the axle hub, which caused it to bounce a little,but with all the rocks it wasn't too noticable"