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Overall Winner
Gary Fridley

Masonown, WV – The AMA D5 HS Series made a stop in Masontown, WV for round three. The temperatures warmed up for round two, but they were back down for round three. It was about 30 degrees for the Big Bike start. Although the ground was not completely frozen, there was plenty of snow coming down at times that led to a white landscape. Coming into this round, front runners have emerged from the pack to battle for the points lead. Corey Arbogast had a six point lead on Shane Lawson. 65 points back from them is Randy Riggs.

This race shaped up to be a good one. Corey Arbogast, Shane Lawson, Gary Fridley, Ryan Echols, Randy Riggs and Josh Miller showed up to tackle the mud and snow in the Open A Class. From the drop of the hat Ryan Echols took the lead by the time the A classes were on the hill. A major uphill was lingering about 100 yards into the woods, but surprisingly the field of 41 riders made it through smoothly on the initial lap.

By the time the first lap was completed, three riders were out front. Ryan Echols, Gary Fridley and Shane Lawson were bar to bar through the barrels for the first couple laps. Josh Miller only made it through the first lap. Also, Corey Arbogast pulled off momentarily after checking into the barrels for the first time. He was tending to his frozen brakes. As the day went on, the conditions worsened. At times, there were total white outs, then there would be flurries of snow, then some sun! This repeated all day. The mud and snow made it tough on riders vision as goggles fogged up and got mud covered quickly. Talking to Roy Dains in the post race interview, Fridley talked about the conditions. “There was a little bit of everything. Everything was so slick, there was no good traction anywhere. These guys were riding real well and I had a bad issue with my goggles at the beginning, they kept fogging up on me, and I stopped about every lap for goggles. All in all it was pretty cold.” The top three battled for pretty much the first hour of the race.

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Randy Riggs

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What happened to spring?

They swapped every once in awhile but stayed pretty close. Randy Riggs stayed consistent in 4th all day and looked to capitalize on one of the top three crashing or breaking. Towards the end of the race the cards were aligned and the Echols/Fridley battle was on. Shane Lawson bowled out with 2 laps to go with a flat rear tire so Randy Riggs was aligned to take 3rd. Fridley and Echols were bar to bar to the checkers with Fridley taking the overall win. Towards the end of the race Fridley was actually down, and Echols had passed him, but Fridley caught up and was able to take the win. “I was hoping I could catch back up, but I wasn’t sure because they were riding good today.” Ryan Echols put in a great ride and actually called the cold muddy day a “bunch of fun!” “Yea it was really slippery out there. One of us would make a mistake and the other would go by, just trying to stay up (right) as much as I could. I think Lawson stalled it a few times out there and I tried to follow Gary.”

Echols said he saw Fridley on the ground and got around him, but knew it would be tough to hold him off because of the conditions. “Then he was in a turn and hit a tree or something and fell and I tried to get away but when it starts snowing real hard it gets a little slippery out there, it was just a bunch of fun really.” Joe Gorman put in a solid ride and finished 4th overall/Open A. Corey Arbogast slipped to 7th Overall due to bike problems.