Old Crow Hare Scramble race report March 3/4, 2007

Round 5 – District 36 (NorCal / Nevada) Western Regional Cross County Series

This past weekend was the 20th Annual running of the “Old Crow Hare Scramble” put on by the legendary “Red Neck Roosters M/C”, out of SF East Bay. The race was held at a placed called Carnegie, in Livermore CA and is where I can officially say I “learned to ride” over 20 years ago. I can remember going to the park with my dad and bro on our clapped out 125cc’s, 3 of them and tried to get up any hill we could find, and I even remember watching this race one weekend and we all though…Dang, that looks crazy, no way… Funny stuff looking back!

The track this year was roughly a 15 mile loop which was about a 35 min lap and we raced just over 3 hours. This place has some of the steepest hill climbs on the planet (it’s a stop on the actual AMA Hillclimb circuit) and the flip side is the downhills sections are more or less uncontrollable. Out of all 20 or so location I’ll race this year, it’s my current “local” race… Kelly and I live about 30mins from doorstep to park entrance. In my B-Vet class we had a total of 34 people and I ended up placing 4th. I got a really good jump at the sound of the gun, maybe 3rd or 4th off the dead engine start, but then got caught up in a bottle neck of other racers on the bottom of a long, rocky, creek bed on the first lap maybe 7 miles into it. I came through the main checkpoint in 17th place after the first lap… 5 laps, 2.5 hours, and a couple of light “yard sale’s” later, I was actually running in 2nd place, but then lost the bike in a tight section and ended up in some trees and had to settle for 4th. All and all it was a great race, and I’m finally getting use to the new bike, it’s a rocket.

BIG THANKS to my Brother and Parents for making the drive and helping me in the pits (it was truly a Carnegie reunion with us all there, I don’t think they’d been back for 15+ years).

This was also the first race were I used my new “Dry Brake” re-fueling system from IMS Racing. I pitted before heading out on my 4th lap and entered the pits in 5th place, after getting a fresh set of Utopia goggles and 2 gallons of gas in less than 10 seconds… I left in 3rd place. Great job!!! This race will pay out 6 advancement points and when added to the 20 I already have and 30 I need, I’m 4 points shy of entering the premier “A” class as an A-Vet (30 – 40 years old.)

Thanks to all the sponsors that help make this happen:

• DH Cycles (local KTM dealer)
• Durban Racing
• IMS Racing
• FMF
• Renthal
• Utopia Optics
• Cycra
• N-Style
• No-Toil
• RedBull
• Cruz Tools
• Pivot Works
• S.U.S.inc
• Garvey (and my Wife)

Cheers’ and sorry no racing photos this weekend… just pre-race stuff… (My dear mom was the stand in photographer and she was too nervous to take pics, let alone watch this sport first hand!!!)

Enjoy…

Phantom HS Hollister, CA

Nothing beats a great weekend at the races when the weather is perfect and riding conditions are even better.

This past weekend was exactly that at Hollister’s “private upper ranch”, the Grand Prix track. It was Round 6 of 13 of the D36 (nor-cal) Spring Cross Country Series. This place sees about 4 weekends a year of Cross country racing which always makes for some awesome riding.

There is a perfectly groomed long MX track on the infield of the ranch and the hill are full of little, tight goat trail style single track, mixed with some very fast hard packed fire roads. This years A/B race was about 10 miles in length, making for about 25 – 27 min laps. Because of the epic conditions… My wife, Kelly decided to partake this weekend too and raced on Saturday in the beginner women class, which runs for about a hour on an abbreviated course. She got a 3rd place start and held off the pack until a pretty nice sized fall caused the bars to get misaligned with the front wheel, so she had to finish the lap like that, make a pit, we tweaked it straight again and got her back out to finish up, she ended up about 10th out of 18 which wasn’t too bad all and all.

I raced on Sunday AM and ended up getting 5 laps in, which puts the total time around 2.5 hours. Got an awesome 2nd place start out of 24 guys on the shotgun start, rode in 2nd place for the first hour and stayed about 20 seconds behind the leader. I needed to pit for fresh goggles and took a small amount of gas too since I was there, and at that time 3rd sneaked by me into 2nd and I was in a tough battle for 3/4th that this point. After a good race with zero falls, and all I could give, I walked away with a 4th place trophy about only 1 min behind 2nd place (1st got a full other lap in). The decision to pit may have been the deciding factor, but I needed new goggles and it happens like that sometimes…

This 4th-place finish should put me within 1 point of advancing to the “A class”. We tend to see about 30+ entries per race in the B-vet class, but I think the St. Patty’s day celebrations may have gotten the best of a dozen or so of the regulars… a 9am race is a hard to run with a hangover!!! The more the entries, the more the advancement points if you trophy.

My goal this year was to advance by June and by the looks, I’m well on my way to making it sooner…!!! Thanks to all the sponsors that help make this happen:

• DH Cycles (local KTM dealer)
• Durban Racing
• IMS Racing
• FMF, Renthal
• Pro-Wheel racing
• Utopia Optics
• Cycra
• N-Style
• No-Toil
• RedBull
• Cruz Tools
• Pivot Works
• S.U.S.inc
• Garvey (and my Wife)

Thanks to the killer Pit Crew this weekend… Durban Racing was out to support despite the “Irish Car-bombs” the night before!!! … Al, Steve, Nick, Kelly and my Parents…

Cheers’ and Happy St. Patty’s day!!

Enjoy!