2003 Hair of the Dog Buddy Hare scrambles

American Cancer Society Benefit Race

December 28, 2003

Grant, Al.

The weather has been crumby for weeks.  We have been cooped up in the house since the last race in November.  We have had our fill of relatives, visits and shopping.  It is now time to go out and ride our motorcycles.  No, we now “must” go out and ride our motorcycles.

Luckily there is a special annual event put on around New Year’s that brings a welcome relief to our racing withdrawals.  The Barr and Moody Families along with the North Alabama Trailriders Association host the Hare of the Dog Buddy Harescrambles.

Located in Grant, Alabama atop beautiful Gunter’s Mountain.  The staging area had a panoramic view of beautiful Kenamer’s Cove and the tip end of the Appalachian Mountains. This year’s event was also blessed with almost perfect weather and course conditions; rare for this time of year.  Normally we are riding on wet trails or even frozen tundra.  But this year it rained some on Wednesday; by Sunday the trails were perfect along with an unusually warm 60 degree day.  Ahh, winter in Alabama.

The course is a short 4-5 miles long consisting of a serious downhill and rock garden section.  A knarly uphill.  Three fun sections of trail with a twisty grass track thrown in.  The trick to this race is to make the laps around 15 to 18 minutes long so you can swap up with your buddy each riding about 5 laps or 3 hours total.  Over the years, this event has become a fun rivalry. A total of 47 teams with top ranked riders from the Mid South harescrambles series,  SE&TRA series and the SERA series joined in on the fun.

To start the show, the riders lined up on the grass track.  In the A Class Shawn Fann takes the hole shot to lead the hot shots around the first turn.  Dicing it out down to the hill.  Shawn, Tom Bennett, Jason Moody and Stephen Smith lead the pack.  Next out of the shoot were the B riders with the likes of Eric Green, Jerry Castleman, Sam Brown and tough old guy John Giles.  And in the packed C class we had Geoffrey and Timmy Sanders leading the way, followed by the team of JB Hill and Mark Lewis.

After a full loop the first lap had some very close calls during the fast swap up and the race was on for the next group of riders.  The neat thing about the swap area is that the riders could watch their buddies traverse the step down hill and follow their progress a good ways around the bottom section overlooking the bluff.

After all was said and done.  Team Honda (Tom Bennett and Roger Little) took overall honors followed by Home Court II (Gary Barr and Jason Moody) the Grant Moutain Gangsters (Shawn Fann and Adam Barr), the Huntsville Power Sports (Chad Maddox and Johnny Shields) and The Black Team (Randall Farless and Stephen Smith) to round out the top five in the A Class.

G&A Racing (Eric Green & Robbie Anderson) won the B class followed by Team Couple of KTM’s (Mike Fann and Ryan Stewart), Team Red Eye (Jerry Castleman & Kip Haynie), Team Bud Light (Sam Brown and Joe Sparkman) and Team Performance Marine (John Giles and Mike Taylor).

And for the C Classes Team Young Gunz (Geoffrey Sanders and Timmy Sanders) won top honors.  Followed by H&L Racing (JB Hill and Mark Lewis), Team Huddleston (Russell Huddleston and  Dustin Robbins), Team Jermo Racing with the world famous Jermo Dupuy and Mark Shrout and Team Buddy’s (Eddie Paseur and Jermey Smith).

And last but not least, there were some gluttons who decided to ride the Ironman class or (their no good buddy did not show class).  It looks like Tim Nagy took this class and who also rides the Ironman class at the now famous Maplesville 24 hour race.  A warm up? Chased by Mark Evans and Nathan Hammons.

In charge of the after race eats, Debbie Barr treated everyone to quite a spread of BBQ, slaw, beans, chips and cold drinks.

Computer scored by Paul Traufler, results were swift and awards handed out quickly along with a full booty of door prizes from Moose, NATRA, Huntsville Power Sports and KC’s Honda.

A great time was had by all and the best part is that we collected over $1,200 dollars for the American Cancer Society.

See ya at the races.

Suzy Moody