Winchendon Aug 21

The Winchendon series went off great this past Saturday. A pretty good turnout of NEMM riders mixed with a decent NEDTS crowd made for some great racing. For most of the NEMM riders it was their first chance at a dirt oval, and it was definitely the first TT for us.

We started the night with the oval racing. There were two heats for the XR100 cup, I was in the first heat with Aaron, Jeremy and an NEDTS a racer. It was a great race with Jeremy getting a jump on me at the start, and Aaron right behind me. I was able to keep the pressure on 'til Jeremy made a little mistake going deep in T3 and letting me by. Aaron was all over me but couldn't figure out how to get by, if the race had gone much longer he might have got me.
For the feature I had an OK start but I didn't have the power that some of the NEDTS had, so I got gapped pretty quickly. I don't even know where I finished, but it was a fun race with plenty of laps.

Scott was racing in the Knobby class on a borrowed XR100 (very graciously offered by the Hildebrant's), so I couldn't race him on the oval, but he did have a good race and got lots of seat time.

Once the oval racing was completed, they turned us loose on the TT course. 4 laps of practice, then immediatly line up for your heat race. I did sign up to race the Knobby class TT, as well as the XR100 Cup, so I'd have a chance to race Scott.
We had a blast, the TT course is so much fun on the small bikes. I don't think it would be as much fun on a big 450, more like work, but with the XR100 it's just so manageable that you can relax and just go for it without worrying about the consequences.

Scott had me covered in the heat and the feature, but I had a great time watching him battle for the top spot against another couple XR100s and little Bobby Bettencourt, riding a Pitster Pro with 14" knobbies on it. Scott wound up getting a 3rd place, which was well earned after a race long battle.
I stalled the bike in the race, couldn't get it restarted but luckily I had a spare plug at the truck, so I was able to change plugs and coax it to start for the XR100 Cup feature.

That feature was great, I had a decent start and managed to keep up with the front runners through the infield. It's so cool when you're following a pack of guys hitting the jump and setting up the left turn back onto the oval. It's a great visual. Anyway, after a few laps I settled into 3rd behind Aaron and was thinking I'd be really happy to finish that way, then he pulled off as we came out of T2 and I inherited 2nd place, so needless to say I was even happier to fininsh 2nd!

This is the XR100 Cup Oval heat race, the first two bikes are NEDTS racers, then it's Jeremy, me and Aaron fighting for 3rd place.


Here's a little bit of Scott's heat race on the Oval, before the camara batteries died.