28th Annual NMA Ponca City Grand National MX Championships
oup
Amateurs battle it out in the
Oklahoma rain
By SHELLY WATSON/SouTHERN DIRT BIKE
PHOTOS BY SHAN MOORE/
TRIALS COMPETITION NEWSPAPER
PONCA CITY, OK, JUL. 28-AUG. 2
,.-he competition at the 28th
I annual NMA Ponca City Grand
National Championship was at its
best, with over 2000 entries on the
week. The track featured a new building this year as Ponca City and
AMBUCS went in together and built a
new, three-level scoring tower valued
at more than $30,000.
The first part of the week saw great
track conditions, and most motos
were completed in a timely manner.
There were a total of 75 motos for the
event. Wednesday, day one, consisted
of races 1 through 46, while Thursday
ran 47 through 75 then picked back
up with 1 through 23, and Friday ran
27 through 62, finishing around 3
p.m., allowing riders to rest up for the
main events on Saturday.
32 AUGUST 20. 2003'
cue
If you were to ask most of the riders
and parents in the pits how to spell
mud by the end of the week's racing,
many of them would've spelled it: pO-N-C-A. With a lot of rain in the area
during the festivities, there was a lot of
mud on the Ponca City racetrack.
Staying upright Saturday was a challenge for all. By the end of the day, the
I
track was in perfect condition - still
muddy but very fast. Saturday morning brought 60-mph winds and very
heavy rain. Races were delayed for
one hour, and even the delay didn't
make track conditions much better.
The heavy rain caused the Ponca
track to be a mud pit.
Heavy rains came through Ponca
two different times in the wee hours of
Saturday morning, at 1:30 a.m. and
again at 5 a.m., dropping what
seemed like tons of water on the track,
which made for horrible track conditions for the first motos. Motos were
cut one lap short due to the conditions. Races 63 through 75 finished
their second motos as best they could,
