On an overcast Saturday morning in Billingsley, there were teams of riders hoping to take home bragging rights and the overall trophy at the inaugural buddy hare scramble at Tree Farm Motorsports.

The weather did keep several regular competitors at home, but the ones that did show up put on a great and exciting display of competition. Several competitors were best friends or even related to each other, but when the green flag dropped, the race was on.

Landon Carter, father of Tyler Carter, competed against his son and grabbed the hole shot to start the race. The older Carter would come through the scoring area first followed by his son and Frank Davis in third.

The only problem with this scenario was that Mr. Carter found an advantageous “hot line” and missed a large section of the course. However, he did beat his son, whose racing number is 911, to the scoring area on the first lap. That would be his last time to have the lead as son Tyler and partner Dustin Stevens rode consistently and put some distance between themselves and the second overall team of Mike Monroe and Frank Davis.

Burton Huff and Kevin DeLoach would work their way through the pack to claim third overall. Mr. Carter and Tommy Cousins would finish the day fifth in the A class. All of the leaders made six laps per team on an 8.5-mile course, and they raced for 2 and one-half hours.

The B class had Chris Wood and Robby Cline taking home top honors followed about 20 seconds later by the team of Jacob Davis and Jason Brasington. Jonathon and Gary Howard would claim the bronze.

The top two teams in the C class were Josh Glover and Scott Allums, who have won several buddy events this year, and Joe Hartz and Barney Danaway. Kent and Grant Upton were the fastest in the family class followed by Jason and Tina McCaskill and Dusty and Mary Lou Davis who finished second and third, respectively.

Other locals to compete were Neal Ousley with Beau Burnett, and Michael Pickle with Rolie Barrett. Tyler Carter and Kevin DeLoach had just a little more energy left so they rode clean up to clear the woods of any bikes with problems, and they finished this just in time for the rain to start falling and filling the pasture land with water.

—

Tuscumbia Wolf Slide about survival

SERA’s harescramble held in Tuscumbia on Sept. 13 was named the Wolf Slide for reasons the competitors now understand.

The terrain for this event was full of rocks and hills, and the rocky hills were slick. Several top contenders found themselves out of the competition because of bike problems or other circumstances.

This race was a true test of survival for both the bike and the body.

Cliff Ousley claimed the hole shot to lead things off for the day in the AA class. He and Dustin Gibson would run fender-to-fender for most of the race with Gibson coming out on top and Ousley just seconds behind. Both of these riders lapped the entire field all the way up to 15th overall. They were on the heels of Kevin DeLoach as he finished his fourth out of five laps. DeLoach finished 14th overall. Tyler Carter also claimed the hole shot and had a consistent day to finish fifth overall and second in Open A.

Several of our local guys grabbed the hole shot and finished well. Ted Anz was first into the woods off the start and went on to win the Vet B class. Jason Brasington, John Huggins and Jason Copeland also competed in this class.

Jonathan Seales got a fast start off the line to be first entering the woods and went on finish fourth in Lites B followed by Ryan Patridge in fifth. Beau Burnett jumped out to an early lead off the start and had a strong day in the highly talented Junior class to claim third.

Jacob Davis, 2008 Vet Kids Champion, got his first win in the Junior class of the 2009 season with an outstanding performance. Jared White rode hard to finish fifth. Burton Huff did not get a great start, being fourth into the woods, but he made up for it throughout the day to win the Senior class by a large margin. Huff also finished five laps on the day to finish in a high overall position.