Copper Classic. 9th O/A, 1st in Vet A.

Looking forward to putting on the War at 4: part deux qualifier in November

The third round of the 2009 Arizona Motorcycle Riders Association Off Road Championship series headed to the mining town of San Manuel in southern Arizona. One of the unique characteristics of this hare scramble location is the long 28 mile loop, which has plenty of high speed sand sections mixed in with some hard packed singletrack and nasty g-outs.

The start was dead engine with both hands in the air and as we left the line I was running 8th. The first lap was mired in dust and I struggled to see the lines in front of me. I rode pretty conservatively as I didn’t want to throw the race away in a high speed crash on the first lap with such limited visibility.

I chose to pit after the first 28 mile loop and thanks to my fantastic pit crew I was in and out with gas and fresh goggles in a matter of seconds. With clear vision and relief from arm pump I started my hard charge to work my way back to the front. I felt great on the second lap and continued the momentum into the third and final lap.

Passing was difficult due to the dust and high speed nature of the course, but I was able to make my way into the 6th position by race end with some epic battles with competitors along the way. 



The first race of the 2009 Arizona Motorcycle Riders Association Off-Road series was a GP style event held at the Grindingstone MX park in Fort McDowell, AZ. In addition to a fantastic GP style Motocross track, the event organizers added in about 7 miles of brand new singletrack and a monster endurocross section complete with rock gardens, tractor tires, logs and huge concrete pipes.

The track was fantastic and we were blessed with a nice shower of rain the night before the race, making the singletrack sections absolutely magical with every off-roaders’ dream combination of no dust and amazing traction.

Since this was a GP format I signed up for the Open A class in addition to my normal Vet A class since the Open A race was a couple races before the Vet A race. I figured this would give me a great opportunity to warm up and make sure my settings were good in a race pace condition.

As the Open A race started I found myself toward the back of the pack after the first turn and thanks to a pile up in the section that transferred us onto the singletrack. Since this was my warm up race, I played it somewhat conservative the first couple laps.

As I started to pass people, though, I became engaged in a couple of battles with some riders that motivated me to push the pace a bit. Despite the poor start, I made my way up to 7th by the race’s end.

With the Open A race out of the way I was feeling very good about the upcoming Vet A race as I had time to shake the cobwebs off, verified my bikes settings and was feeling pretty warm.

As I rolled to the starting line for the Vet A race, I was a bit surprised to see Steve Hatch lined up in my class! Needless to say, the race for the win was over after the first turn as Steve just plain checked out by the time the first couple miles had passed.

I started the Vet A race mid pack and had a bit of a challenge trying to find my rhythm on the first lap as my arms pumped up pretty good, which caused me to ride pretty tight. I started to loosen up after the first lap, though and was able to start increasing my speed toward the latter half of lap two.

Lap three had me feeling really good and I started to make up some ground and make several passes on the singletrack sections. The MX track was starting to get pretty rough so I backed it down a bit on those sections since it was a small part of the overall course.

By lap four I was just outside the top six and feeling great. Back in the singletrack section I had a great battle going on with another rider in my class. I pushed hard on a couple of sections and was able to pass him and open up a good gap.

Unfortunately, I made a mistake on a short uphill and throttle-locked my wrist towards the top. This launched me off the hill and probably made for a spectacular crash.  

While I was on the ground a couple of the riders that I had worked so hard to get around, got by me. The crash left me with some bent bars, so I couldn’t push as hard as I would have liked to catch back up with the riders that had passed me.

I felt great during this race and despite my last lap crash, I ended up finishing 8th in the Vet A Class. I feel really good about my fitness and the progress in my riding skills.

Many thanks again to my family and all of my wonderful sponsors for the 2009 season!

The 6th round of the AMA National Hare Scramble series in Monticello, Utah seemed like the perfect reason to escape the scorching summer heat of Arizona for a weekend. In addition, I will be heading back up to Monticello for the next round of the AMRA Championship Series in August, so it would also allow me to get familiar with the track and give me a baseline for how I should be training.

This is a unique venue as it offers both Motocross and SingleTrack sections, so it definitely pays to have some skill diversity here. The start took us through the MX track before funnelling into the dry, dusty singletrack. 

Did I mention that it was dry, dusty singletrack? I got a pretty decent start, but with the groups starting so close to each other, I had little to no visibility for the first two laps or so. I dropped the bike several times these first two laps thanks to the dust build-up on my goggles.

I pitted after the third lap and with a fresh set of goggles was able to make up some good ground for a 10th place finish.

The Arizona Trail Riders put on a truly spectacular qualifier format enduro event this year in Wickenburg, AZ. Remnants of a desert winter revealed themselves at the start in the form of snowflakes as the race started!



The race started on an easy transfer section to the first special test section. The first special test section was an interesting mix of nice, flowing singletrack and winding sand washes. Things were going pretty well for me until we hit the sand wash sections. For some reason I was completely out of sorts on this section and dropped my bike several times going into the loose corners. One of these drops would result in a pretty nasty gash in my right forearm (which would later become infected).



After recovering from the first test section, I was able to pick up the pace quite a bit on the next several test sections. At the midway point I was able to head back to the pits to try to get some medical attention for my arm.



The last lap was essentially one really long test section and was much more technical than the earlier sections. This is typically where I am strongest in a race due to my endurance conditioning and strength. About 30 minutes into this section there was a long, technical hillclimb section that just seemed to have my number as I must have dropped the bike three times on that section alone.



Other than that hillclimb, I rode a great second half and finished the race in 8th place despite my injured arm and a pretty bent up radiator (from the rocks on that hillclimb).



Many thanks to my great sponsors this year along with the best pit team a racer could ask for in my wife Silvia, kids Raven and Kai and my parents Larry and Lucy Quiroz!

Healing up for the Western National Hare Scramble in Monticello, UT.