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Offroad Motorcycle
and ATV Nationals
2008 OMA Racing Series
Round #2 - Millerstown,
KY
Indian Bluff XC
April 5, 2008 |
By: Andy Lagzdins |
Andy Lagzdins OMA Pro
ATV Race Report - Continued
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Matt
Lindle would have to settle for eight place
in class after a day that he said "could
have been better. There was water everywhere.
I've never seen so much water in a race
in my life." Lindles Quad City Quad
Doctor Honda survived the battle with the
elements, but a lost air filter caused some
performance issues for him. |
As the race neared the halfway mark, Ballance led
Sommers with David Crane in third. Shane Gaunt,
Rob Zimmerman and I battled in the second pack.
I had gotten around Rob at a stream crossing, after
which he got severely hung up trying to pass me
back in a bottleneck. I was picking my way through
a tight alternate line around a mud pit when a vine
got me in the neck and pulled me off the back of
my quad. I thought it was a branch so I kept going,
hoping it would break and it didn’t. I pulled
my quad off a tree and kept hammering.
Shane had opened up a gap on me, and with muddy
gloves and goggles I started to drop into survival
mode. The long mud sections were now six or eight
lanes wide, and I would get through them by cutting
back and forth over the ruts. I started to think
“how am I going to get through this next
lap?” but somehow I would find a new line,
zigzagging through stuck quads and rocking through
deep rooty ruts to make it by lap after lap. At
one point we were going down a hill and a rider
had gotten ejected from his quad and was doing
a hands-out superman down the middle of the muddy
trail in front of us like he was on a slip-n-slide
in his parent’s back yard on the fourth
of July. It’s always comforting to know
that someone is having a harder time than me!
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Two
days of rain prior to the OMA Sidi Indian
Bluff XC took their toll on the course.
A mud crusted Brandon Sommers would cross
the finish line two hours and nine minutes
later with nearly a seven minute gap over
second place rider Shane Gaunt. |
2007
OMA Nationals champion Andy Lagzdins launched
his Dirt First Duncan Racing Honda out of
the woods in Kentucky on Saturday. Lagzdins
finished fourth after an incident with a
low hanging vine knocked him off the quad
and dropped him out of third place near
the end of the event. |
On the next to last lap Bryan Hulsey came up
on me, and there was nothing I could do to stay
in front of him. He made a clean pass, then picked
a good hillclimb line and disappeared. It was
on this lap that Ballance dropped out with mechanical
issues and David Crane popped a ball joint on
his KTM450. That left Brandon Sommers all alone
to take the win, with Shane Gaunt and Bryan Hulsey
taking second and third. I was able to hold onto
fourth ahead of Rob Zimmerman.
The third race of the OMA Series takes place
in three weeks in Rio Grande, Ohio with the 2nd
annual running of the Coal Miner XC. This race
will be co-sanctioned with AWRCS, and should have
a great Pro turnout and an awesome course layout.
See you there.
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Pro
ATV Top Three Overall (left
to Right)
Shane Gaunt, Brandon Sommers, Bryan Hulsey |
photos
by John
Gasso
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