Race Recap - Fall Series #8 - Canyon MX
Canyon - Sunday, November 21:
Total of 23 racers: 3 Master, 4 Expert, 10 Intermediate and 6 Novice.
Race 3 featured some heated battles! Ryan Pedigo (#328) held off Rick Arnold (#97) and Tee Stefaniak (#49), but then a last lap bobble from Pedigo allowed Rick to take over - another exciting Master show to the very end. Second moto Ryan jumped out to the front position and maintained it, despite Tee’s hot pursuit. Unfortunately, Rick had to leave for an emergency so he wasn’t there to compete.
Expert class welcomed Jeff Neil (#40) back to the valley, escaping the Canadian winter. His celebration was a battle with Darren Sebastiani (#526), just edging Darren out. It was a show from start to finish for BOTH motos with Jeff going 2-1 and Darren going 1-2. Also, returning to race with AZOT after a brief hiatus were long-time members Scott Boek (#66) and Andy Smith (#93). Way to go Experts! Check out the pictures, especially the last few of Master & Expert.
Race 7 echoed the theme of exciting close battles. The full field of 10 Intermediate racers featured close 1-2-3’s of David Kennedy (#270) in front of Brian Walsh (#929) and Travis Nelson (#111v) in both motos. After another 1-1 day, David had that grin of “looking for a graduation present.” Good to see Brian Walsh get back to race with AZOT this Fall series. Another happy to be returning was Darren Kennon (#22) – he finally got over a very tough bout of pneumonia. Despite #28 Jasmine Phillips’ leg injury last week, she was back on the track - with a little help from friends. Lastly, there was another one-day guest rider in Bob Bland, another escapee from the frozen north of Canada (BC to be specific).
For the Novice, no surprise, Brian Perry Sr. (#300) again brought his A game and easily took first, followed by David Brown (#114) and Vergil Tillis (#971) going 3-2 and 2-3, respectively. In the second moto, the real race was between those two and Gary Kritcher (#48k), with the last 3 laps consisting of a back and forth battle. Great to see Vergil out on the track again!
One missed kudos to David O’Riordan at the November 7th Canyon race, when a fellow rider went down in their bar-banging corner. David immediately turned around and shielded his opponent who was still down - way to go David model sportsmanship!
Last race coming up – December 11th at ACP so mark your calendar!
