Race Report

May 15, 2005 - Week 3

Watching the weather all week and, depending on what weather station you watched or listened to, the reports were basically all over the place. The weather men were sure it was going to rain, but how much, when and where seemed to be again elusive.

When Sunday morning broke, the radar looked pretty good and it seemed that we had a shot at getting it in before late day Thunderstorms arrived. At around 11:00 am. There was hardly anyone there and the phone was only ringing sporadically with pre-registrations. It looked like the crowd was going to be very small. The last half hour of registration really picked up and when the gate fell at 1:31 p.m. there were 191 riders split into 52 motos with 8 main events.

Thunder was already starting to roll around the local foothills and it quickly became obvious that rain was eminent. We all hoped that we could get in at least two rounds of motos but we were really racing the oncoming black sky. The first round was completed in record time as only 20 minutes had passed for the first 52 motos. At moto 14 of the second round the sky opened up and it was time to “hold”. 15 minutes of hard rain and it was over, at least for a while. Volunteers were everywhere with brooms and shovels. The puddles were brushed away, stone dust was sprinkled in some areas and in about ten minutes the track was race ready. All the years that we had worked on the underground drainage system really paid off again.

The rest of the motos were run with the scheduled 10 minute break between the second and third round cancelled. When the final gate dropped, three rounds of 52 motos and 8 main events were run in 2 hours and 5 minutes including the rain delay.

Winners were Connor Houlihan in 9 & under Cruiser even with a wreck in the second moto. Frank Olish was perfect in 13 Cruiser. Pete Bolotti and Billy Ripley traded moto wins in 14-15 cruiser with Billy winning the tie breaking third moto. 16-17 Cruiser champ was the ‘Road Warrior” Russ Menz making his return to Foothills for the first time this year. Randy Greco won 22=29 and 35-39 combined. John McDowell broke the heart of Ed Hayes all three motos by pulling off last turn passes for the wins in 40-44 Cruiser. Butch (I’m the reason for the new turn) Feitel held off Dan Krouse in 45-49 Cruiser.

Gracen Hayes showed why she is the reigning Foothills female rider of the year by winning both 10 & under girls cruiser and 10-11 girls classes. Allison Thomas top girl in 14-17 girl cruiser while Lori Markie aced a perfect in 10-39 woman’s cruiser. Amanda Wedge perfect in 6-7, 8-9 Girls, the same form Christy Kestler in 14-15 Girls.

Novice winners were Even Greco, Zack Brown, Dustin Belmonte, Allie Couch, Josh Knowlton, and Kevin Mathews. The experts coming out on top were Jake Ritchie, Kyle Block, Dylan Perez, Adam Hulse. 13 experts were really fun two watch as all three riders won a moto. In the end it was Jo Jo Howard coming out on top. Other winners were Jonathan Barna, Billy Ripley, Russ Menz, Bryn Bowen, Matt Markie and Drew Gustafson. The top Rookies were Matt Valardi, Jake Olish, Josh Valardi, Keith Morsey, Chris Pfeffer, Dylan Jacquemin, Garrett McGurk, Geoff Robbins, Chris Mann, Martin Brown, Thomas Shew, Josh Brown and Cliff Richards.

The 16 & Over open was a hot one with Matt Markie winning the T/C Cycle Hole Shot award and the main event.