Carnagie Hare Scramble

The third round of the D-36 Hare Scramble Series was held at Carnagie Off Road Park.  It was wet when we arrived but it wasn't raining at the moment.  Carnagie has lots of steep grassy hills.  It was to wet to really run most of the hills so we stayed on top of the ridges and the rock based trails.  I started on the inside and got good start right behind Craig Wesner.  In the second corner we turned off the side of a tabletop jump.  I bumped my way passed Craig and took the lead.  Meanwhile Brian didn't get him bike started on the first kicked and was at the back of the field.  Brian rode around the moto track with his head down trying to dodge all of the roost.  After the moto track we turned through the fence and when we turned to come back up Brian trucked to the inside and hooked up in the fresh grass and passed about seven riders at once.  On the way up to the top of the mountain I was passed by Ed McCoy.  I followed him for a little while and noticed that Brian had caught up to us.  I found my way around McCoy and Brian followed into second.  We headed down a rocky creek bed and then out to a trial on the side of the mountain when my front end washed out against the side of the hill.  I was trying to get up when Brian came and tried to get around only to get tangled up with me.  We got going again but the rest of the pack had caught up.  Brian led us to the out check when we both made a wrong turn off the course.  Brian tucked in behind McCoy but got by right away.  At the end of the lap we got into a fast creek bed and I found a good line and got passed both McCoy and Brian to lead at the end of the first lap. On the second lap Brian passed me on an off camber section to take over the lead again.  It stayed like that until the third lap when we came upon a bottleneck.  Brian never hesitated went around the other riders sitting in line.  He sort of slid off the side of the cliff but muscled his bike and managed to stay upright.  I came up to the bottleneck and rode around the other guys and cut through and got by Brian.  Everyone was struck on a slippery rocky hill and I got over to the left of the main line where it was rockier but was clear.  I made it to the place where the first guy was stuck and got caught up with him and the course worker helping riders up.  I got off and pushed to the top and could hear Brian right behind me.  Right then I knew that we had opened up a big lead from the rest of the field.   I led for a lap then Brian got a good drive and passed me up the big hill and took the lead into pit stop.  Both Troy and Kirk did a great job pitting us and we got out of the pits with a full tank of gas and goggles smoothly.  Over the next three laps Brian opened up about a thirty second lead and we stayed about the same distance apart.  Brian stopped for a quick splash of gas going into the last lap and I caught up a bit.  He didn't know how close I was and was on cruise control.  The last couple of miles I picked up the pace and had planned to try to get him in the creek bed at the end of the lap.  I caught up to him at the right time and I knew he didn't know I was there.  We got to the creek bed I pinned it and blew passed him.  Brian woke up and pinned it himself and we raced for the finish down the creek.  Brian got the best of me for the win and we had another really good race together.  Rod Kreis finished third with Craig Wesner finishing fourth.  The weather turned bad right after the race and the C-Riders had a survival race.  The race was called early because there were so many bottlenecks and riders crashing but all seemed to have a really good time in the slop.

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