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Overall Winner
Gary Fridley

Masontown, WV - After a stop in Tucker County via the Cannan Valley, the AMA D5 Hare Scramble Series made it back to Mountain Top Raceway in Masontown, WV. Late during the week the Preston County hills got heavy storms and much rain. By race time on Saturday, it was dusty in the open fields but still pretty wet in the woods. 56 total riders came out to battle the Paul Koontz Motor Sports course. All of the regulars showed to do battle. Morgantown Yamaha rider Ryan Echols was fresh off a great ride at the Snowshoe round of the Can Am GNCCs. Ryan placed second in class and sixth overall! Gary Fridley also represented on the WV terrain with a top twenty overall at that event.

With the drop of the flag they were off. Echols gained the early first lap lead. James Glover, Chris Egress, Randy Riggs, and Corey Arbogast were quick to follow. Fridley was dead last on the start. In the post race interview with AMA D5 Rider Rep Roy Dains, series points leader Fridley talks about the trouble he had getting off the line. “I don’t know. I think that was the worst start to date. It just wouldn’t fire and once I got it going, I stalled it again in the woods, and it wouldn’t start again!” Fridley is not a newcomer to playing catch up and he played it well on Saturday. Fridley had to push hard during and after the first lap and his second and third laps were around a blistering eleven minutes.

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2nd Overall/Open A
Corey Arbogast

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Vet B Winner
Dean Tomasello

Echols’ day ended early as he ran into mechanical trouble. He actually was lucky to have his bike at all. During the week, Echols’ bike was stolen but was eventually found. The problem was he did not get the bike back until 11:30 Friday night. That left little time to go over the bike for the race. Eventually Fridley gained the lead and took off and sealed up the Overall/Open A win. Fridley commented on the first couple laps on the track. “I rode as hard as I could to catch up and it worked out. It’s our kind of track. It’s wet, muddy, pretty rough track. It is like this where I practice all the time.” Corey Arbogast put in a solid ride and held on to take second overall. Early in the race, Randy Riggs was making time on Arbogast and it looked as if he might catch him. By the end of the race, Riggs was out of contention and James Glover was trying to catch Arbogast and make a move. Arbogast and Glover actually came into the barrels only two seconds apart!!

Glover comments on trying to catch Arbogast. “You kept telling me I was catching him, so I just kept flying and flying. I over shot a few turns and he was just flying, I just couldn’t keep up.” Arbogast actually had built up a good buffer between himself and Glover. That all ended when he pulled off to gas and had problems. “It was rough. I just kept pushing. Back on the hill climb they gassed me and it flooded the bike out. I knew he (Glover) could catch me and then I saw him and I said "man I got to go". So I just pushed hard and tried hard and it paid off.” Glover commented that once Arbogast knew he was there, he seemed to take it up another notch. “He started picking up the pace when he knew I was behind him and that was just enough to stay in the lead.” KTM mounted Arbogast eventually took second Overall/Open A with Glover coming in third Overall/Open A.

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Vet A Winner
Ron Stetz