25th Halloween Race a Success at Motosports Park

Story by Kenzie

25th annual Halloween event at Motosports Park has been a long standing tradition that everyone enjoys. With over 50 years of racing and providing quality and excellent racing platforms "byron" is a long staple of the Moto community.  Sunday was exactly more of the same!  Right at 300 riders converged on the park for a whole lot of fun and competiton. Didn't hurt that the weather was going to be excellent as well. 

The 70 degree weather made it perfect for a Sunday race day out at Byron Motosports Park. With getting down towards the end of the season with very few nice days left, everyone is trying to get their racing and riding in while they can before the freezing cold and snow comes. And with being in Illinois, you never know how soon that’ll come. It seemed like Byron had a pretty good turnout considering the largest class had 22 riders in it and many other classes contained around 15 riders. Unfortunately I was only able to stay for the first motos since I had other commitments for the end of the day so all of the classes that I will be writing about will be from the first motos.

Seventeen 250 C riders out on the track all at once and they were all pretty spread out and had decent size gaps between each other, especially Hayden Schumacher (33) who was in first and put a pretty good size gap between him and the rest of the class. Even though the majority of the class weren’t running close together, Owen Bills (12) and Cody Hardesty (185) were a couple of the few who were putting up a battle at least for the first half of the moto. These two were racing pretty close together, Bills in front of Hardesty, everytime these two could go into a corner Hardesty would get real close to Bills and almost look like he was going to try to pass him but as soon as they got out of that corner Bills was back on the gas and making sure he stayed ahead. As time went on Hardesty must have been getting tired because there was a little bit of a gap that started forming between the two. Bills kept pushing and was able to finish in 7th with Hardesty just one place behind him in 8th.

From the moment Open B started we could tell it was going to be a good race between Michael Addison Jr (315) and Luke Parker (217). The two went into the first couple of corners right on top of each other, Addison barely in front of Parker, Addison was able to lead Parker the entire first lap but then when it came to the corner right before the rollers, Parker took another line and managed to pass Addison. Nobody likes getting passed while battling in a race with someone so of course Addison didn’t back down and give up, he made sure to not let Parker stay in front of him for long and found somewhere to pass him back. After Addison was able to get back in front of Parker he picked up some speed and found the right lines to take to make a gap between him and Parker. Now Addison was on his way to try and catch up to first place, Sean Badker (257), but at this point there wasn’t much time left and Badker had a pretty good lead on them. As the checkered flag went out, Badker placed first, Addison placed second, and Parker still got third.

Super Mini is always a fun class to watch, these kids have some serious speed when they get out there on the race track. As these kids came around on their first lap they were all racing in “pairs”, Brody Brewer (586) was in first with Aiden Biersteker (32) in second right with him. Bryce Arnold (9) was in third with Patrick Mikulcik (37) right with him and Kendall Healy (615) and Bman Massie (735) right behind him in sixth place. About their second lap around, Healy fell in the rollers which led Massie to get ahead of him. It wasn’t long before Healy got back moving and was able to make his time back up and actually was able to pass back Massie and put himself back in fifth place. As time went on, Brewer was gaining some speed and pulling away from Biersteker while Arnold was doing some catching up to Biersteker. On their last lap around, just about when these two were getting close to the finish, Arnold was able to have just enough time to catch up and pass Biersteker! Brewer pulled out a first for the finish with Arnold just barely making it with a second and Biersteker in third, these kids put on an entertaining race that’s for sure!

Mini Open is a class that consists of 65cc riders and 85cc riders, this class was pretty big with 22 riders. In the middle of the pack, Mason Smith (865) and Adam Graham (55) were racing real close to each other and caught my attention quickly. Smith was leading Graham for the first lap and a little into the second lap until the two went into one of the corners and Graham made a pass and got in front of Smith. Graham may have gotten in front of Smith but Smith was not letting him get away, Smith was staying right on Graham. As the two were coming to go down the downhill right before where the finish line is, Graham made a minor mistake which gave Smith some time to get right up next to Graham and stay running right next to him all the way up to the rollers and that’s when Smith was actually able to make a pass back around Smith and take his spot back. This was their last lap around, the pressure was really on for the both of them, was Smith going to be able to hold off Graham or was Graham going to be able to find a way around Smith? Well it turned out Smith had enough in him to hold off Graham all the way to the finish. Smith finished in 9th and Graham finished in 10th.

Schoolboy was a very intense race between Tanner Rossi (44) and Hayden Schumacher (33). These two made it very hard to even try to look away, they battled nonstop the entire way to the finish! As the two were racing against each other, we were watching Schumacher trying to find any line he could to try and pass Rossi while Rossi was out there blocking Schumacher to make sure he stayed in front. This continued for the entire first two laps, as they’re going in their third lap around, it seemed like Rossi was able to pull just a tad bit away while Deegan Vanvreede (11) who was in third place was picking up time and starting to get closer to the two. Now the fourth and final lap of the race, Schumacher was back on Rossi’s tail while Vanvreede was getting even closer but probably not enough time to really catch up and be right with them to do any passing. This was a battle to the finish between Rossi and Schumacher, we were into the last couple of turns before the finish, Schumacher was right next to Rossi, trying to find just the right line to hopefully get around him and win the race, unfortunately for Schumacher it just wasn’t enough to pick off Rossi. So Rossi was able to keep his well deserved first with Schumacher in second and Vanvreede finishing in third!

I think we can all agree that there was all sorts of good and intense racing out on that track today! With it being Byron’s last race of the season I’m sure many wanted to make sure they made it out there. With very few race weekends left, make sure to get your racing in while you can. Motosports Park also has open rides on weekends til the weather turns crappy, so if you can't race but want to get in some good riding before the season is over check them out as they have hours posted on their website and facebook!  Look for more events like this in 2023!