SERIES
VOL. 52 ISSUE 8 FEBRUARY 24, 2015 P103
"I've been practicing my starts
after the first hare and hound
national where I had a real bad
start," Pearson said. "So my
bike fired up and took off good.
I know Graffunder and me were
coming into a corner pretty
sharp, and I lost my front end
and he slid into me and we both
went down."
Pearson's teammate Nick Bur-
son benefited from their clash
and emerged at the head of the
pack—at least for a few miles.
"I was third then Axel and
Cory crashed on, like, the third
corner up top and I went right
Briefly...
Officially, 553 riders entered over the
weekend, reportedly second only to the
635 who entered the club's Quicksilver
National Enduro back in its heyday.
The Quicksilver ran as a National en-
duro round from 1983 to 2007, run not
only on the SRMC's private 500 acres
but with the bulk of it in the adjacent
Clear Creek Management Area. Un-
fortunately, the BLM closed CCMA in
2007, pointing to the potential risk from
the naturally occurring asbestos in the
area's soil. With insufficient available
land to run a proper enduro, the SRMC
soon turned to hosting hare scrambles;
only one competitive event per year is
allowed by the club in order to avoid trail
overuse.
AMA District 36 racers filled the field,
of course, and to no one's surprise they
performed well on home turf. Eight of
the top 10 overall, for example, were
NorCal-based.
So what's Justin Bonita do for a liv-
ing these days? "It's quite unique," he
says. "I'm the personal assistant for this
really wealthy man, and I just help him
out and take care of his errands, really."
And that job almost kept him from rac-
ing, he revealed: "I was supposed to
be fishing in the Bahamas with my boss
[this weekend]. That's my job, to stock
up the freezer for him to eat some fresh
fish. But the weather's really choppy
[there now] and we couldn't get across
the sea right now so we're going to go
next week."
"This year I've been training so my re-
sults have been a lot better," second-
year Pro and FMF 250cc Pro winner
Joey Fiasconaro said. In addition, "I
actually blew my bike up last week and
Sierra Motorsports rebuilt the whole
thing and got me going. Eric Ducray set
me up with awesome suspension."
(Left) Travis Coy came from a so-so
start to finish in second place.
(Above) Last year's series runner-
up Justin Bonita is semi-retired now
but he raced and steadily climbed
through the pack to finish third.
