OMA came to town

[Fred1956]

The OMA series came to Arkansas this past weekend and ran with a combined AHSCS sanction. The course was 100% virgin trail on the old Fort Chaffee property. BAD storms came through on Thursday night but IMO they had the course in good shape for the race. A beautiful day for racing with a light breeze and sunny skies, temps got to around 75 degrees for the high. This place had almost everything you could ask for, mud, water, high speed straights, mogul runs through the old artillery range section, hard packed uphill 6th gear runs, drainage ditch/road crossings, brush hogged grass sections, a low hanging tree that you had to use some 'lay down on the seat' technique to get under, a tight section of roots that I described as a " dumped out truckload of 3" PVC pipe anchored on the ends and sprayed with oil", and one of the biggest mud holes I'd ever seen in the start area. Pro loop for the afternoon 'B' and up classes was around 8 miles and the morning classes got set the course for the fast guys on a 4.5 mile loop.
Tom Webb from Dirt Bike Magazine was on hand to 'test' the bikes of Jimmy Jarrett and Paul Whibley so he suited up with the rest of us 50+ guys for the morning class. Mark 'Kato' Kariya was on hand shooting pictures and I saw him all over the course taking shots of the riders.
Flag dropped on the morning event and we 50+ guys were the first to go, my GG fired cleanly and the other 12 guys disappeared in my peripheral vision, until I got to that big mud hole at the first turn (did I mention that I hate mud?) Tom Webb (on Jarretts' Geico Honda) and a couple of other guys blasted by me on the outside and after I slid and picked my way through the mud I was 6th out of the start corner, a poor line choice, not getting my weight forward in a sweeper and a couple of other mistakes left me 6th in class & 13th overall after the first lap, I settled in and let that smooth GasGas power (enhanced by the RB Designs carb mod) and the LTR suspension pull me to 3rd in class & 8th overall after the 2nd lap, 6th overall after 3, and I held 3rd in class after 4 laps for the remainder of the race. Overall I got as high as 4th after 5 laps but had an issue with that previously mentioned "pile of PVC pipe" and settled into and held on to 5th overall for the morning event. Final was 3rd in 50+ for OMA, 1st for AHSCS (my series) and 5th overall for the norning session. BTW I passed Webb on the 3rd lap while he had Jarrets' Honda hopelessly stuck, he said later that he had to have help to get out and he pitted and switched to Whibley's Yamaha and continued on from there ending up not far behind me at 4th in class and 6th overall. Only the top 6 finishers made 8 laps in the hour and a half & of those 4 were in the 50+ class.
I saw lots of Gassers there, one of the coolest was Daniel Janus' 2010 FSE250. He has that bike looking sharp and finished 1st in the A Lites class.
Dwight Maggard brought his 2011 EC250E down from 417Powersports in Missouri to run the 40-49 A class and he had a great start but a poor line choice out on the course left him stuck very deep and he needed assistance to get out, left him dead last and after a couple of laps not gaining any ground he called it a day. He said he saw no sense in wringing the bike through that, he said he was very happy with the way the bike handled but disappointed in his showing. Robert Campbell came over from Oklahoma and also rode the A 40-49 class on his GasGas EC300, he got a great start and rode to a 3rd place finish. Ray Campbell (Robert's brother) rode a GG in the C 40-49 class, finishing 11th, while Charles Walls trailered with Campbell's and piloted his GG to a 6th place in the B 40-49 class.
6 GasGas' in attendance and a good showing for all of them.
Video from the B 30-39 class winner, minus the start but the start straight is about 12:10 in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkErN...e_gdata_player

A side note-IMO Tom Webb & Mark Kariya are two of the nicest guys you'd ever want to meet, very friendly and I really enjoyed visiting with the both of them, Webb can flat ride and after the race he gave his Troy Lee Designs helmet, with autograph, to use as an auction item for our 'Almosta Race' next New Year's Day, Whibley & Jerrett also donated their autographed jerseys that they wore to 1st & 2nd place respectively for the race auction. She also has promises of a couple more from the series. Former GasGas of NA Matt Stavish was also in attendance on a Yamaha, he finished 1st in the A 40-49 class and a 6th overall in the afternoon session. We were a little disappointed to not know ahead of time as Mary still has one of Matt's old GasGas pictures and would have loved to get it autographed for the bar. Fun day!!

[mcnut]

Good race report.

[waycrazy]

I have never raced bikes before.But after reading all of these race reports I think about trying racing often.If I ever do race I have to find one with racers slower and fatter then me.

[REVERUP]

Sweet ride and report Fred! Looks like fun, thanks for sharing. looks like new graphics and some hand guard straightening were in your future.

Roscoe