PRESIDENT’S ANNOUNCEMENT – THIRD QUARTER

Our luck with great weather ran out for our STRA April and May trials events!  For both events we had downpours in the morning, clearing rain as we rode and both were great.

Championship rounds five and six at Hickory Hills, March 13th and 14th had 57 riders Saturday and a hardy 37 on Sunday.  This allowed us to split score the first day but we peer scored the second day due.  Papa Joe, Ross Walls and Eric Mattson did a great job setting up the sections and loop.  It was well marked and the difficulty level was just right for the conditions.   There is no better venue on our schedule to ride in and after a rain than Hickory Hills.  Papa Joe’s ground perks great and overall the event can be best summed up as was wet, slippery, muddy and fun!  Another high point of the Hickory Hills event was that we had 16 youth riders at Saturday’s competition.  The youth program is Papa Joe’s passion and Dewanna Comer (Curt was off doing his newly assigned AHRMA duties) provided a great experience for these up and coming riders.  A big thanks to her for her solo effort!

Three weeks later we had The Spring Splash on May 4th and 5th, rounds seven and eight of the Championship series, at the Trials Training Center.  The forecast of heavy rain hindered the typical attendance and we had 59 riders each day.  In the end people’s caution was wasted because the weather worked out great for the adult riders.  The youth did have to brave a monsoon to ride Saturday morning but they did so with smiles.  As the weather cleared we had two beautiful days of creek and hillside riding set up in typical Charlie Roberts style plus cleaver and unique trophies to top it off.

The Spring Splash ended the first half of our Spring STRA season.  The season resumes September 14th and 15th at the inaugural Hollytree Offroad event in Hollytree, AL hosted by the Huntsville Trials Club.

Despite the lack of STRA events over the summer, some of our members did not stop riding.  June is typically the American Motorcyclist Association / North American Trials Council (AMA/NATC) Nationals month and we had a strong showing by our members in national competition.  The AMA/NATC Eastern Championship included two rounds in Nebraska and two in Minnesota.   We had five current STRA members compete and the highlights were Blake Bronstein taking fourth in the Jr Expert Class, Eric Mattson getting sixth overall in the Sportsman Class and Laura Peters becoming Eastern Champion in the Women Clubman class.

The Western Championship was hosted in Colorado and Oregon.  We had five current STRA members compete in Colorado and six in Oregon.  In this series Blake Bronstein again took fourth in the Jr Expert Class and Scott Jordon took third in the Senior Clubman class.

The climax of the AMA/NATC series was the PRO competition which includes all the Eastern and Western national events.   Of the twelve riders competing in this class, three are active in the STRA (Alex Niederer, Andreas Niederer and Karl Davis, Jr).  This competition saw Andreas taking ninth overall in the class and coming down the last event, he edged out Karl by one point in the final standings to claim second to Karl’s third.   What a great representation by all the riders who took part in the AMA/NATC Mototrials series!

There is still riding going on in the region so look at the area clubs for some tire time competition.  An example of this is Alan Shirley’s Fun Trial at the Chert Pit in Ringgold, GA on the 20th of July.  His first event generated a lot of fun memories for people so we hope to see a great turnout.  Please go to the STRA Facebook page for more information.

Hollytree will come sooner than we know, so keep riding!

Douglas