Last weekend was the 6th round of the D-36 Cross Country Series held at Hollister Hills OHV Park in Hollister, California. I arrived early to find parking and get all settled in for a great day of racing. The race was held at the Upper Ranch area, which was closed to the general public. The Upper Ranch has a nicely groomed GP track, which was part of the course. I managed to get signed up with no problems and so I headed back to my pit area to give my trusty GasGas a good once over. I got dressed and grabbed my gas can and proceeded down to pit lane to drop off my gas can. I noticed that there was a massive line formed of riders waiting to get their transponders checked in, so I headed over to get in line. From the way things looked I was not going to get a good gate pick. I made my way to row #7 C Seniors. The start line was jammed packed with riders and I could not find a place to squeeze into, so I started looking for a couple of 2 stroke to line up between, no such luck, all those orange and red thumpers made up the vast majority of the bikes. I found a guy with a KTM magic button and a Honda CRF 450 to line up between. I asked both riders if there bike were going to start on the first kick, the KTM rider pointed to the button, the Honda guy stated “sure no problem”, I then asked if I either one would mind changing places? Yea, right…like that was going to happen? After the riders meeting was over they stated firing off the rows 1 minute apart. I must have made the guy on the Honda nervous, cause he practiced firing that 450 up on every row that left. As the rows departed the drag race to the first turn kept getting longer and soon row 7 was off. The KTM fired, and the Honda did not, I had to lean to the right to avoid hitting the poor guy.
The drag race to the first turn was pretty crazy, a wide flat 90 degree right hand turn, then a nice short straight with a high banked 90 left hand turn, I was able to rail the outside and make a couple of passes. There was a few more turns and jumps then the course funneled down into single track. It was like riding on Velcro in the woods sections! I fell in line and pretty much-played follow the leader for the first half of the race, picking off a few riders at a time. Once out of the woods and onto service roads the course got really dusty and made racing very difficult trying to see, let alone ride at a race pace. Back into the woods we headed, this part of the course dropped us out into a sandy riverbed where we had to make a 30 feet steep climb out of the riverbed. Man…what a bottleneck of riders trying to climb out! I cliff had ruts several feet deep from the AA/A/B rides and was giving the majority of the C riders a fit! I knew I did not want to get caught up behind this mess so I picked a line between two guys trying to get the bike out of the ruts and pinned it! I managed to not go down, but I hit a rider with my Moose / GoFaster hand guards…I felt bad, thinking that he may have gotten hurt. I looked back to see if he was standing and he was still trying to get his bike out of the rut. I must have gotten past 25+ riders, and I had clear dust free vision ahead. The woods sections were perfect for racing, exposed oak tree roots and very little rocks. I was closing in on a rider ahead of me and managed to catch up with about 5 or 6 guys in a line in a woods section, which dumped us out onto a very dry and dusty up hill switchback service road. At the next turn there was a MASSIVE bottleneck of riders. I could not see what was going on due to the dust being so bad; all I could hear was bike revving motors and roots of silt ahead on the trail. I have no idea how many riders were stuck up there but it was not going to clear out and time soon. This section of the course was not marked with ribbon or snow fence, just the service road and a trail that was cut into the brush where the riders were bottlenecked. I decided to make work my way forward to get a better look, I found a small trail entrance that was blocked by another bike, I asked him to move forward so I could take a look at the trail. The trail looked to run next to the bottleneck trail, so I took off up the trail and I had countless number of riders following me. I merged onto the course about 75 feet ahead of the bottleneck. The course appeared to be making it way towards the scoring area. I entered back onto the GP course and headed into scoring with a conga line of riders in tow. I was scored in for my first lap in 6th place C Seniors. I feeling really good and my bike was working perfect as I finished up the GP section of the course and headed back into the woods for another loop! Loop two was pretty uneventful until about the middle of the course in a woods section, the course ran us down a really steep down hill that was rutted out and exposed oak tree roots and braking bumps, I ran this section on the first loop and really did not see this section giving guys and problems until now. The must have been 5 or 6 rider bulldogging their bike down this hill, and they managed to have the good line taken…One of the rider look behind him and could see I was starting down the hill, he pulled his bike out of the line and let me and another ride go by! The bottleneck in the silt had was gone and smooth sailing to the scoring check. I got scored and headed back out for loop three. The road sections were really dusty and I did not feel like taking a header trying to race guys in the blinding dust, and I back off and thought I’d make a move in the woods sections. I over shoot a turn and got off course and lost a couple of spots…. so much for riding smart! Loop three was in the books and the white flag came out and so I put my head down and hammer out the last lap. I had a pretty good battle with a rider on a KTM 300 for most of the last lap; we both had clear trails in front of us and were able to kick it up a notch. On lap 4 as I approached the entrance to the GP course I rounded a blind turn and there was a rider down, so I had to had to pull to the right and managed to go head first into a bush, and stalled my bike. I had to dismount the bike to pull it free from the vines sticks, and I got the bike back onto the trail I was passed by 3 riders. I gave the ole 200 a kick and she fired up and I was back in the race to try to get my position back, I raced a couple of KTM’s, and Yamaha 4 strokes hard to though the final 3 turns and jumps, finished 10th in class for the day and 100th overall. All in all it was a great day, my Gas Gas continues to perform flawlessly against mostly open class bikes!
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