The Youth ATV course at Camp Coker was nearly a mile longer than at Steele Creek, with the course map showing it at 4.5 miles. The Micro ATV course was the same length as the last round, 1.6 miles. Of the 67 Youth ATV riders at Camp Coker, Damien Hawkin’s was the overall winner, while Bodie Buckhannon came out on top of the 28 Micro ATV riders. 

Parker Henderson was off to a good start in YXC1, leading on the first lap, but with a margin of less than a second over Hawkins. That slim gap was not enough to hold Hawkins off, and by the second lap he was in the lead. Bryce Husband started out in sixth but fought his way through the pack, and succeeded in passing Henderson on the third lap. Hawkins and Husband worked together to open up a line around a bottleneck and get each other through, before resuming their race on the other side. Though the two stayed close together, it was Hawkins who came out ahead for the third race in a row. Henderson ended up rounding out the podium in third. I asked Hawkins about those last two laps, and he said, “After we got each other unstuck and routed around the bottleneck, Bryce [Husband] and I battled turn for turn. On the last lap I got a pit board saying I had only a .02 lead, so I put my head down and pushed as hard as I could to the checkered flag!” 

Camp Coker was another big weekend for Charlie Stewart. He kept his perfect season intact and made the overall podium for the first time! It’s rare to make the podium from the second row, so this is quite an accomplishment for Stewart. However, Nicholas Dearing didn’t give him the win in YXC2 easily. Dearing led through lap four and continued to stay close to Stewart after getting passed. Tyler Cox finished third after battling his way up from eighth place. When asked about his race, Stewart said “It was a great track and I pushed to my best finish ever with a third place overall!” 

The overall non-YXC rider in the ATV youth race was Andrea Rogers (YAM) from Hammondsville, Ohio. She was competing in the Girls (8-15) ATV class and finished 13th overall.

Bodie Buckhannon took home his second win of the year in MXC1. Unfortunately, the only other rider in his class, last round’s winner Garrett Cox, crashed out of the race on the first lap. This obviously left the race wide-open for Buckhannon, who finished first overall in the Micro Race as well. When asked about his race, Buckhannon said “I loved racing in the sand! It was a good battle for the overall through traffic. I also hope that Garrett Cox has a speedy recovery!”

Khyler Davis took home her first win since Wild Boar in MXC2, and placed third overall. At just over the halfway mark she had amassed a lead of about thirty seconds, which she held constant through the rest of the race. It looked as though Tyler McLauglin would finish comfortably in second, but a last lap mistake cost him well over a minute, dropping him back to third and giving Reed Stevens an opportunity to move up to second place. When asked about her race, Davis told us, “It was a fun track, I liked it! With two laps to go my tire went flat and I had to finish the race with only three.”

The overall non-MXC rider in the Micro ATV race was Ryder McCormick (HON), for the third time in a row, once again racing in the 90 Stock (8-11) class. This time, he managed a truly impressive second place overall! 

The next round of the 2019 AMSOIL Grand National Cross Country Series will take place on May 4 and 5 in Peru, Indiana with the X-Factor Whitetails GNCC. ATV and Micro racing will take place on Saturday while Bike racing will take place on Sunday.