Well, another McLeod County Fair in Hutchinson, MN has come and gone, and the boy did pretty good, he got a 5th place on Friday night, even with a bad break hanging up in a corner and yanking his kill tether, and pulled a 4th place Saturday in a tough crowd, taking advantage of a pile up at the start and holding onto his lead for 5 laps against modded Blasters, Raptor 350s, and a 250r chassis with a Blaster motor (with a few mods, I'm sure ). Not bad for a basically stock 300ex with just a pipe and a rev box, but I'm sure the 400ex front end parts, rear axle spacers and rear Raptor shock helped keep things under control in the rough stuff, he really flew over the stutters that seemed to slow down a lot of the other quads,probably why he was able to hold on to his place, since he didn't have the power or the stones to pull the big doubles in front of the grandstands. Not bad for a trail rider that does this once a year,up against some AMA class racers from around the area. I didn't race this year, couldn't see spending over 100 bucks to put nerf bars on the Wolverine for a couple of races, besides, the memory of limping for a couple of weeks kind of put a damper on that !!! The bod don't heal as fast after age 44 !! Too bad only trophies for 3rd place, the boy really put his heart into these races, I'm real proud of him for his effort and results, now he's dropping hints he would do better with a bigger/new quad , but to keep in the sport quad class,it would have to be a modded Blaster or a Warrior/Raptor 350, so don't know what would be best, and still have a good trail riding quad. Sorry for the long post, but gotta rave a little for the kid, he's all I got !!!

 

Wow thats pretty impressive considering he is clearly at a disadvantage against more powerful and agile atv's. I personally don't thing a Raptor 350 or a Blaster would really be a step up performance wise. The MAY be faster on top end, but the 300ex can hang right with them in low to mid range....with the Blaster having more modded potential. Congrats to your son [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif[/img].
Gary

 

Another thing I saw at the races there, we'll probably be hearing the name Rath for years to come, Darryl Rath had some quads in the kids 50 - 90 cc class, looking real good and fast, and the part that had the whole crowd smiling - his little boy, less than 4 years old, putting the whole track with his 50 cc quad, never stopping or giving up even after the bigger boys finished, that little guy is a real trooper, we'll probably be hearing about him in the years to come !! That's what I like about this yearly race, seeing the future racers out there giving it all they have, and having a ball doing it. That's how my boy got hooked, taking his LT80 around the track, grinning ear to ear after those laps around the track in front of a cheering crowd, really gets the urge to ride going !!