The weather has been great for the last month, cool mornings, warm afternoons and an occasional rain that kept the dust down at the private tracks. But not this weekend. A storm rolled in on Friday bringing with it some cold, strong winds And in typical NM style, there was a lot of blowing dust that came with it. That dust wasn’t from the track though, it was actually muddy, I think my bike picked up 15 pounds of clay after the first practice session on Friday thanks to some broken water pipes and wind hampered sprinklers. And while it was slick and nasty for a while, it opened up a ton of lines through the turns, mostly deep ruts, the kind you can just slam into and rail around.
Some really fast riders were pulling into the pits on Friday morning for practice. First to roll in was the Wharton caravan from Pilot Point Texas. Jeff Ward showed up a little later in a van with his son Barton and next to me, Dean Wilson. Of course the next great New Mexico rider, who is following in the footsteps of Buckelew, Tedesco, Clark, the Johnsons and most recently Bradley Graham, no other than Jason Anderson who has added a few titles to his resume this spring. Eli Tomac also made the short drive down from Colorado, so the weekend was shaping up to be a showcase of some of the fastest amateur talent in the nation right now. But there was one surprise on Saturday morning, when the 241 Sobe /Samsung Honda of Trey Canard started ripping laps during the first practice of the morning.
Today the stock classes were running. First moto off the gate, and it was a rather large gate of three, was the MX Lite A’s. Canard split up the two Kawasakis in the first turn and never looked back. In the Motocross class a few motos later Canard was challenged by a hard charging Tyler Wharton, but he started pulling away on lap three and put a bit of distance between himself and Wharton.
The MX Lite B class was absolutely dominated by the other Wharton brother. If Blake wasn’t pulling the holeshot, he was pretty close, and after a few turns was out in front. The Lites were double gated with the A’s, and while I didn’t have a stop watch on them, Blake seemed to be keeping pace with Tray. Another intermediate rider that was looking super fast in practice on Friday was Dean Wilson. In his first MX Lite moto he got tangled up in the first turn and it took him forever to get untangled. And when you have someone out front as fast and consistent as Blake Wharton, the chances of running him down are slim and none, even if you are as fast as Wilson. The second moto saw Blake with the holeshot and Wilson a close second, but it just wasn’t meant to be for Wilson today as Wharton slowly pulled away and had about 7 seconds on him after the checkers flew. Wilson may have something for him tomorrow, it should be interesting.
The Schoolboy class was stacked and looked to be a good race with Eli Tomac, Jason Anderson and Blake Wharton all on the line. The big surprise was Anderson on an RM125! The gate dropped and Anderson wheelied into the holeshot down the inside. Going into the second turn it was Anderson, Tomac then Wharton. Going into the 3rd turn it was Anderson, Wharton then Tomac. The fourth turn it was Wharton, Anderson and then Tomac. Then down the hill and into the fifth turn it was Wharton, Tomac and then Anderson, which was the way it would stay to the finish. While the rest of that race was kind of boring, the first half lap was action packed.
Well that is all for today. The weather forecast is looking like more of the same tomorrow, so if you are coming out, bring a hoody and some goggles. Should be another good day of racing.
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