Hollister Hare Scramble

The Hollister National Hare Scramble has grown into one of the biggest and best races of the year.  Promoter Pete Francini was recognized last year by the AMA and won an award for putting on the best organized race in the country.  The first race on the weekend was the XR 100 race.  James Ptarcinski took the win ahead of Jim Reger and Terry Miller.  The next race was the Old Timer race.  Big Al was all set this year and felt good having practiced quite a bit in the weeks leading up to the race.  The Seniors were lined up with the Super Seniors so he was a little worried about them.  When warming up his bike on the line his bike caught a ring and seized.  He pushed it out of the way and being the character he is when we came over to see what was wrong he threw the bike on the ground and told us to push it back to the pits like a spoiled supercrosser.  The scenario wasn't that far off because we had a 450 SX race ready sitting back at the box van that Al jumped on and made the start to the race.  Unfortunately he doesn't have much time on the four stroke and stalled it thirty times and crashed twenty, although he later said that he loved the bike but wished he would have had the electric start.  Curt Wilcox took the senior win for the second consecutive year ahead of John Wells and Dave Wood.  It rained off and on during the day and was supposed to rain overnight which will make for a muddy Pro Race on Sunday.  

I got to the race about nine in the morning and since it was raining I decided to put on the solid Braking Rotor.  Brian and I were running intermediate Maxxis Tires even though it was getting muddy.  We thought that most of the race would be on the fireroads where it wouldn't be as muddy.  Maxxis just came out with a new soft/intermediate tire that looked to be the perfect pick for the day.  As noon approached everyone made it through tech inspection where we were sound tested and had to be under 96 decibels.   I lined up over on the left side.  There was some hard sand right in front of the starting line that looked like I would hook up on.  Brian was off to the right and had a straight shot to the first turn but had to deal with some deep mud.  When the shot gut went off I got a great jump when I saw the smoke from the shotgun.  I did hook up on the sand and shot ahead of the rest of the field.  There was a Kawasaki to my left and the two of us had a couple of bike lengths going into the first turn.  I thought it was Andy Shea out front but it was Chuck Woodford.  I followed him for almost a mile then went for a pass while crossing a field.  I came out of the bushes and didn't exactly see where we were going and came down into Chuck's line to take the lead.  From there I tried to put in a good pace.  We were mostly on fireroads that I know from past years.  Chuck stayed behind me and after a while I heard Brian come up behind me.  He got by me almost at the top of the hill with Woodford in tow.  The three of us freight trained around for the rest of the first lap.  I could hear the pack behind us but we had a little cushion to the next rider behind us.  At the end of the lap we had the motocross track.  The moto track was the muddiest part of the racetrack.  We headed out for the second lap and Brian and Chuck started to inch away from me.  I tightened up a bit couldn't push as hard as I needed to battle for the win.  I could see ahead of me and could see Chuck stalking Brian and saw that Brian had his hands full.  I had to pit after two laps letting the two leaders pull ahead even more.  Brian had Chuck behind him for the whole next lap and then pulled in for gas.  When he did Chuck got the lead.  Brian pushed hard and caught right back up and made a quick pass.  Chuck had to pit again after four laps and Brian tried to pull a lead.  Brian opened up a small lead in part to his ability to make his way passed the lappers quickly.  Chuck couldn't get around a couple guys as quick, made a couple small mistakes, then had to settle for second.  Brian went on to take his fourth win at Hollister in a row by about two minutes.  Chuck had about another two over me.  I finished third and accomplished my goal of finishing on the box.  I can't even remember the last time I finished on the podium.  There was another eight minutes to the fourth place finisher, Kerry Green from Australia.  He was later disqualified for failing a post race sound test.  That put Brett Zofchak in fourth and Brian Brown in fifth.  Local rider Jordan Brandt had a great race and put his best ever result in for sixth ahead of Andy Grider, Brian Spearle,  and Nathan Kanney.  Nate Dawg was having a good ride going and was stalking me in fourth place but tried to go three laps and didn't make it so he had to scrounge gas to make it back to the pits.  Jeriah Gurley rounded out the top ten.  We had a good time up on the podium and got to spray Champaign all over the crowd.  No one picked up on the five hundred dollar bounty for beating Brian so it carries on to next year for $1000 to anyone that can beat Brian at Hollister.

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