By Ryan Smith

Union SC—A big crowd of racers showed up with 224 entries in the afternoon class and 265 entries in the morning. Traci Cecco, who has won every morning overall so far this season on her Yamaha, controlled the morning race. The gap wasn’t so large this time around, though, as Mike Benson piloted his FST/Maxxis Kawasaki V-Force 700 to first in the U2 class and second overall, only two seconds behind Traci at the finish line. Third overall went to Marcus Gonzalez on his Red Kawasaki V Force, only eight seconds behind Benson. “Speedy” Gonzalez finished second in the U2 class.

The U2 class is heavily stacked this year as third went to FST’s Mike Shelley also on a V-Force. Rounding out the top five in the U2 class was Jim Stack in fourth and Curtis Hall in fifth. They all broke into the top twenty overall, truly impressive on such large-sized machines.

In the women’s class, Angel Atwell came in second and just missed the podium with a fourth overall ride. Jennifer Albright finished right behind her in third with another Atwell, Kristen, taking the fourth spot in the women’s class and Stephanie Verkade rounding out the top five on her Cardio Stack-backed ride.

The super senior class came down to John Gallagher edging out Mike Ockerman by two seconds to grab his second win of the season on his factory Polaris Outlaw. Third spot in the Super Senior class went to Ken Vickered. Joey “Bam” Margaria dominated the sport class on his Yamaha Blaster and went on to win the class by twenty minutes over second place rider Dan McConnaughey. Josh Headden rounded out the top three in the sport class.

Scott Kilby made the Warnert/Can-Am team proud with his third win of the season on his factory Can-Am Outlander 800. He was also the highest finishing 4x4 with a 19 th overall run. Bryan Buckhannon grabbed 2 nd place on his Can Am and Jamie Bougher held onto third with his Cardio-Stack-backed Suzuki King Quad.

Richard Cecco suffered some early problems but was running some blistering fast laps later in the race to end up finishing in the fourth spot.

The 4x4 limited class was once again controlled by Mike Swift on his Factory Can-Am outlander 800 he held onto the win over Kevin Trantham in the second spot and Can Am’s Mike Penland in the third spot. Can-Am must be extremely proud this week as the got the win in three of the four utility classes with Cliffton Beasley getting his third win of the season in the 4x4 lites class on his Can-Am 500, followed by Jerime Dudding, also from the factory Can Am team, in second. David Reese, last rounds’ winner, held on to third place in the 4x4 lites class.

The highest finishing amateur racer in the morning class was Michael Young in the 30+ class. He finished eighth overall. Christopher Newton won the 16-19 C class and finished 13 th overall he grabbed the lead on the third lap and held on to a two minute lead by the finish. William Payne won the 20+ C class and held the lead the entire four-lap race and finished 36 th overall. Stephen Brittain won the 24+ class, but not before battling all day with second place finisher Brandon Symmes. They traded the lead almost every lap over the course of the dry dusty two-hour race.

Kenneth Hemmings won the 36+ C class on his Yamaha about 40 seconds over second place finisher Jeff Robinson. Leeann Kirkland won the Women’s Novice class and Walker Fowler won the Youth Production class once again and finished an amazing 46 th overall out of the last row in the morning race.

The XC1 Pro Class and the XC2 Pro Am Class heavily dominate the afternoon but there are nine other classes that race in the afternoon. The highest finishing amateur not in the XC2 class was Spencer Dickerson from Arkansas. He out dueled Josh Kirkland from West Virginia by only two seconds at the finish line. Spencer ended up with the 26 th overall spot and Josh with the 28 th overall spot. Brian Wolf won the Junior A class by three minutes and finished in the top 30 overall. He had the lead on the first lap and never looked back, stretching his lead out over every lap.

Gary Bryson took the Vet A class for the day on his Pro Quad Racing sponsored Honda. Gary is one of the local fast guys from the Mid East Series, which has given us such fast riders like Mike Houston, Bryan Cook and Santo Derisi. Thomas Wright put his East Coast ATV Honda out front of Multi time class champion Dave Simmons in the Senior Class.

The college B class may have been the most intense battle of the day with four riders finishing within thirty seconds of each other. Devon Jarrett had a bad start at the beginning of the race and kept climbing to grab the number one spot in the class on his Dirtworks motorsports/Hot Cams/GT Thunder/Janseen Motorsports/State Street Warehouse Honda. Just behind, Devon, Parker Jones also had a bad first lap and ended up climbing the ladder to the second spot in the class on his Risslers Extreme ATV/ MSI Racing/ GTTHUNDER/ Maxxis/Klotz backed Honda. Third went to Andrew Cornell on his Pirelli tire/Hiper Rims/Derisi racing backed Honda. Just seven seconds behind, Andrew Craig Bowman took the fourth place spot. The class was an intense battle all day and four guys finishing within thirty seconds of each other is truly amazing and shows just how much talent is in the College B class.

Brad Wilson won the Junior B class and South Carolina’s own Joey Coogler won the Vet B class. Congratulations to all the top runners in the class for coming out on top of the dry and dusty Big Buck. Riders will pick up the class battles in two weeks at the Acerbis Loretta Lynn’s GNCC in Hurricane Mills, Tennessee.