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Overall Winner
Ryan Echols

Elkins, WV - For the seventh round of the AMA D5 HS Series, racers made a trip to the Fink Family Farm on Kelly Mountain in Elkins, WV. This track is favored by a lot of racers, but is also known as one of the toughest. The big bike race was full of pre race excitement as Ryan Echols showed up on a new Yamaha thumper and GNCC XC2 Lites Pro Justin Williamson showed up to battle and see if anyone could stop Gary Fridley’s five race winning streak. For one of the few times all year the weather was great. The sun was shining, there was a slight breeze and over 80 riders came out to battle on the Randolph County terrain.

With the drop of the flag, the A classes found about four gears before they made it to the first turn. Brennon Loftin had the hole shot with Justin Williamson right behind him. Loftin is making the comeback of the year as he had open heart surgery in the off season. At the end of the first lap it was clear what the battle of the day was going to be.

Ryan Echols and Justin Williamson put on a great show all day for the fans. “I kept my mind to it and was riding as hard as I could. I got this new bike, I was a little bit faster on it, so, I think it will work out for me in the long run.” Echols had been riding a Yamaha YZ 250 2-Stroke, but has now put all chips in on a Yamaha 250 4-Stroke. The ride seemed to work Saturday as Echols had no problem jumping mud holes, climbing hills or navigating the tight woods. After cruising behind Echols for the first part of the race, Williamson finally took the lead and tried to pull away on his Red Bull KTM. “Ryan obviously has raced here more than me and knows the terrain a little better so I tried to cruise behind him and once I got the lead I tried to pull away but he stayed right with me.” Williamson and Echols were right on each other most of the day. If you were at the race you could tell the fans were loving it. It was probably the greatest fan turn out the series has seen all year.

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A Class Start

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Justin Williamson

Echols eventually took the lead and also the Overall/Open A win as Williamson, who settled for 2nd overall/Open A had to pull the KTM into the pits for gas. “Finally, I stopped for gas and Ryan got by. I just kept making too many mistakes at that point. I’m sure Ryan probably made a few, but I made more, and just kept on going. We had a lot of fun out there. It was good mud practice and my Red Bull KTM really worked well.” A big fear of Echols was dumping the big 4-stroke and having trouble getting it going again. “About the only time I got stuck or anything was the last lap. There is a crick back down there and I was going up the right of it, to go up the side of the bank and every lap it was working out for me. Except that last lap. I must have bobbled it or something, the front end washed down in the hole and it just flipped me over the bars, the bike shut off and I didn’t think it was gonna start back up, I want to thank everyone that helped get out of the hole cause I don’t think I could have pushed it up there myself.”

Another great race of the day came between Corey Arbogast and Shane Lawson. Lawson was down big about three laps into the race before he started a major comeback. By the end of the race everyone was waiting on Lawson for the 3rd place overall podium interview. Lawson’s Suzuki Failed him and Arbogast ended up snagging the final podium spot, 3rd overall/Open A. “ I got stuck over here in the mud hole and I was stuck in third gear the whole lap, I could shift up but not down, I saw Shane Lawson’s bike sitting there smoking. I don’t know what happened but I charged that last lap, I wanted it bad.” Corey drastically needed to finish well and gain some points on Gary Fridley. Fridley only managed to make it in the race to about the half way mark.

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Ryan Echols