Whipple, Southard, Duff overall Fathers Day Hare Scramble.

6-19-2022

Photos by 451 Photography

Story by Kenzie

Results

Father's Day tradition at Fox Valley Off Road has been ongoing for quite a while now, it's a combination of technical, hilly and many more things to entice the ridership by making it special and tougher all in one day. This weekend and specially Sunday's HS was not going to disappoint that goal. Single track that hasn't been used in 10 years, off cambers and other trails that have never been used. The morning youth classes and women actually had a section in rock creek! The 50cc / 65beginner classes had some newer trails to use as in making the other course more technical it had to be adjusted as well. Today we will showcase the big course and note many special finishes and some good in not great riding. Cooper Duff (201), this kid has raced this series 

a while now, today he would over all the youth race which is an hour long and in his Super Mini class he came through the barrels on the first lap in the lead, and didn't look back til he seen the checker flag wave. Austin Burns (222) dropped some time early in the race but then settled into a solid rhythm keeping Jarrod Anderson (297) in sight and then overtaking him to take 2nd in Super Mini and overall as well. They had a solid battle the whole hour. D&W Cycle Specialtie's Kade Heilman (347) was the first 85cc in the class but also over all was in the top 5 for the morning event. He was turning 11.33 second laps and his fastest was 11.08 which was right up on par with some of the super mini riders who are a tad bit older and more experienced. Only Duff in this morning class was in the middle 10's this day. In comparison when you look at the 65cc class you find that the winner Colton Richmond was pulling 12.25 laps while the rest of the class was in the 13-15 minute range. This is when the kids learn, smaller wheels makes a technical course like this show it's ugly head in lap times.

Hall's Cycles Randy Southard (682) moved into the 50+A class and with that has been running at the front quite a bit. Not only did he over all the morning big bike classes with a solid 9 laps and battled with Rob Mcgee for good part of the race but there were some very solid riders in the class today totally 9. Erik Olson (654) made the trip over as well as Stacy Stewart (689) who made his way back up here to battle with the rest of the fast guys. Jay Porter(600) just moved into the A class part of the 50+ bunch and showed that he belonged there as well. The course was adjusted slightly adding in another hill a little bit more of rock creek and it showed in the riders lap times. Southard and McGee was pulling 11's with most of the class running 11.20's. At the end of the 9 laps 1 hour and 30 mins of racing 23 seconds is all the separated the two leaders. Intense at times can be a valid description of woods racing. This day many riders had this experience. Since we are talking about 50+ classes the B/C class had 13 with D.J. Parks (3030) pulling the holeshot and not looking back his lap time varied about 10-15 seconds the whole race running 12.20's. a full second slower then A class but consistent for this type of event. Mark Spizzirri(616) was just a tad off the leaders pace but ended with a minute over Ron Kettle (3009) in third. Right at 100 riders were in this morning big bike course, at times there were some passing issues with the tighter trails but in the end they managed to use the bigger part of the course to set up passes. Jack Allgeyer (910) led wire to wire in the 200c class he has grown so much from the mini cycle days and has continued to put his laps in and has been doing it at the front of the pack today was no different his first lap was a high 11 which means traffic, but as he settled in the 10.40 range was working well all morning. Brady Dillbeck (981) was right there early but Allgeyer pulled a minute after the full race had run. Cooper Duff, yep same kid who overalled the morning youth race finished an impressive 3rd in this class. This would have put Duff at 2.5 hours of racing his super mini Halls' Gas Gas was getting it's work out today. Afternoon big bikes has most of the experienced younger riders in it, the ones that are solid riders and get the toughest course of the day.

 Today they experienced a course which in the 21 years of racing at Fox Valley they had never done before. This was running the west hillside of rock creek, very technical, very slow and a rider had to watch it as one slip up would cost valuable time and wouldn't feel the best if a tumble down the bank happened. Riding national events the last few years WFO's own Tanner Whipple (29) came out to bang some laps with FVOR bunch today. Tanner is no stranger to this property he has raced here for a very long time, the big concern was the course technical enough to give him a challenge but not to much for the 40 and 30+ guys to also have a good time. Many times when riders of his caliber show up they add some extra challenge to the day. Tanner did this like Jayson Crawford did in our last race, he took off with the last line of riders, letting his class take off a good 3-4 min ahead. Hall's Cycles Jarred Hall (15) had a clean start and led 8 laps Anyone that knows woods racing knows that passing from back in the pack has so many variables that it's hard to know what can be accomplished. Tanner was starting to get a little worried by lap 6-7 that he wasn't catching Jarred, and Jarred was burning some solid laps as well. This competitive nature sparks some intense racing. Lap 8 or someplace during lap 7 Tanner catches Jarred lap times show about 30 seconds a lap over a period of time is how it was done. Tanner's first lap he came through the barrels in 40th overall, about 11 minutes later he came through 19th, then 11th, then 5th. Practice passing is a very valuable asset in ones racing toolbox. Wfo's Whipple got a great day of that type of racing today. He will need that in the bigger races he plans for the remaining part of the year. Elijah Berryman(136) in Open A class won taking 4th overall in the afternoon race with Ayden White (288) in the Open B class taking 3rd overall both winning their classes easily. Fox Valley Off Road is looking forward to our next racing event in July (16 &17) as the WFO races will be here as well to battle. As this story is being finalized, the Free T-Shirt weekend, dual points event has turned into a very large and fun event. Special trails are pretty much only used on this weekend. Crossing the creek is part of that process. See ya there I will be scoring the kids course like always and looking forward to the kids getting in some good racing.