| All
Terrain Vehicle Cross Country Series
Round #6 - Skoolz Out
Chireno, Texas
May 14th, 2006 |
By:
David Culpepper |
 |
ATVCCS
Rider Melaine Dunn |
Chireno, Texas - Well much to my surprise,
when I got to the track on Friday it was not marked
for the race yet. There is a creek that runs across
the back part of the property that was flooded due to
several rain showers over the past couple of weeks.
When I got to the 1.5 mile marker the track looked like
a lake, and it stayed that way for the next half mile.
After seeing this I realized we had much more work to
do than expected, and little time to do it. Brady got
the tractor and followed me around the open fields in
the lower portion of the property to mow out a grass
track. Since we lost more that two and half miles of
trail it was vital that we get more mileage in. The
sun was shining hard and I didn’t think anymore
about the weather. After putting in many man hours we
finally had a track riders could get around. Saturday
blessed us with great sunny weather but Sunday was a
different story.
The PeeWee track was 7/10’s of a mile long and
was layed out in a nice section of woods. The first
class to race was the 6 under riders. Terry Bohanon
was able to pull off the win over current point’s
leader Wesley Pruitt. Pruitt lead the entire race until
the last lap, when Bohanon made the pass for the win.
Third went to Kenzi Potteiger followed by Adalyn Nutt
and Peirre Lopez. In the 8 under class Broc Watkins
was able to lap the entire field to take first place.
Cody Price finished second followed by Kaden Walters,
Braden Mize, and Megan Daniel. In the 10 under class
it was a race between Nathan Clague and Wyatt Day. Both
of these riders got off to a quick start and began to
pull away from the field early. Halfway through the
race it was noted that the two front runners had missed
a jump on the track and as a result they were both stopped
at the scoring area and held until all other riders
passed them. Once back on their way Clague and Day worked
their way back into the lead and would hold on to finish
first and second respectively. Third went to Hart Bassana,
and fourth to Dakota Davis.
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Lexie
Coulter catching some air on her YFZ450. |
The Lady’s Open class blasted off the line at
3pm Saturday afternoon. There were 10 riders all gunning
for the holeshot. Heather Best was quick off the line
and led the group through the first turn closely followed
by Becca Stanley and Lexie Coulter. It didn’t
take long for Coulter to take over the lead and flat
out leave the rest of the field. By the end of the race
her lead had stretched to over nine minutes. While Coulter
was riding away with first, Best was also riding away
with second. Back in third things were heating up between
Morgan Nichols, Candice Lively, and Crystal Perry. By
the second lap the riders seemed to have sorted themselves
out with Nichols in third, Perry in fourth, and Lively
in fifth. Becca Stanley must have had some problems
as she dropped back to sixth. The rest of the field
on lap two was as follows: Ashley Robinson, Bobbie Amos,
Amelia Wilkins, and Deanna Bohanon. It was great to
see a full line of ladies at the start, and even better
to see them all take the checkered flag. Congrats to
the ladies. In the 50+ class the “Ragin Cajun”
Dennis Wilson won in dominant fashion. In the Youth
Beginner class the boys finally got a win over the girls.
Travis Brown pretty much went wire to wire for the win.
Jarod Roberts took second, which was good enough to
move him into the point’s lead over Lacey Tincher.
Tincher did not fair well in this race and finished
in ninth position. Third goes to Kyle Potteiger, then
Tori Oliver, and Shelby Spencer. And the Lady 30+ class
was won by Annette Price followed by Dorothy Rogers,
and Tina Burkett. Let’s end this paragraph by
saying bye bye to the sunshine.
Sunday morning 6:00am the alarm goes off. I open the
mini blinds and saw it starting to get daylight. Quickly
I get up only to hear what sounded like raindrops. Then
all the sudden lightning followed by pouring down rain
and marble size hail. How could this be, it’s
only 6:03am now! Needless to say the part of the track
that was dry on Friday was now covered in water. Due
to dangerous lightning we postponed the race schedule
by one hour. Also the decision was made to race both
programs 3 laps instead of the A Program for 1 ½
hours plus one lap and the B Program for an hour plus
one lap. This was done for a couple of reasons, 1) to
ensure that the track didn’t get tore up so bad
that racers could make it around for the afternoon race,
and 2) so we’d only do minimal damage to the land
we were racing on.
 |
Shawn
Hess staying ahead of the competition. |
After a quick riders meeting it was off to the starting
line to begin the A Program races. The green flag went
up promply at 10 am and Shawn Hess, Gerald Dowden and
Josh Hahne all blasted off in the sweeping right hand
turn, which was some of that good ole red clay. The
starting area was on high ground and it was actually
in very good condition. When riders completed their
first lap it was evident conditions out back were not
so good. About the only thing you could see on riders
were their eyes and their teeth, provided they didn’t
have them open when the machine in front of them was
spraying roost. Ron Allen who normally racing the Utility
class decided he’d try to take advantage of the
muddy conditions and entered the Pro race on his 4x4.
Nice try but those guys in the Pro Class are blazing
fast even in adverse conditions. Hess won the race followed
by Hahne, Dowden, and Allen. The Open class had some
really close racing between Kyle Porter, Robby Bunch,
and Douglas Latham. At the finish less than 20 seconds
seperated the three riders. These three riders also
finished 3rd, 4th, and 5th overall for the A Program.
Steven Bryant and Lexie Coulter rounded out the top
five. Just a little FYI, Lexie competed in the GNCC
a couple of weeks ago and finished second in the Lady’s
Pro class. She is off to Ohio this weekend to see if
see can follow it up with another good finish. Good
luck in Ohio Lexie. Garrett Oliver took a comanding
victory in the Junior class and Gaylon Knowlton in the
30+ class.
Track conditions were going away pretty quick due
to the heavy rains Sunday morning but we still had 52
more riders ready to race. Track Marshalls went out
to give the track a quick look and it was decided to
start the B Program on time. Since the story is already
getting kinda long I’m just going to list the
top 5 in each class of the B Program below. The riders
were able to get their 3 laps in but there where a lot
eyes being washed out after the race. See ya in Hallettsville
on May 28.
www.atvccs.com
200 Sharon Kay Drive
Longview, Texas 75604
903 295-0761
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