2021 East Hare Scrambles Round One Results

| March 25, 2021

“Mad Max” Frenandez Top AMA East Hare Scrambles Opener

Story and photo by Kenneth Held

Weather conditions could not have been any better for round one of the AMA East Hare Scrambles Series hosted by VXCS in Martinsville, Virginia. And racing conditions were just as good.

**Beta’s Kyle McDonal took the win at the opening round of the AMA East Hare Scrambles Championship in Virginia.**

Light rain on Thursday provided perfect traction for Sunday’s main event, as well as for the Youth events earlier in the morning. The trails were a blend of tight woods, frequent elevation changes mixed with flowing recreational pathways. Entries topped out at 351, a record for the VXCS club.

There was no shortage of talent in the AA row. Despite the slightly top-heavy entries of KTM motorcycles, three Beta motorcycles were leading the way after the first lap. Making it even more interesting was that the lead bike was a 125cc two-stroke. And the rider on top of that bike was newcomer, AA racer ¨Mad Max” Fernandez.

Directly behind Fernandez was last year’s number-one plate holder Thorn Devlin, followed by multi-time AMA East and ECEA champ Kyle McDonal. This went go on for two laps until Fernandez hit a tree stump trying to go around a bottleneck, permanently knocking his pipe right out of the exhaust manifold. From that point forward, Fernandez dropped back, putting Kawasaki pilot Robbie Norwood in the lead with McDonal in second.

And where was Thorn? He was out of the race due to what rumored was to be an electrical issue, when a stick displaced a wire on his motorcycle leaving him without power.

The battle was now between Norwood, McDonal and Stephen Edmondson (KTM). On lap four, McDonal made the pass on Norwood, and on lap five, Edmondson made the pass on Norwood, and that is how they came through at the checkers.

Rachel Gutish (Beta) won the Women’s class, while Matthew Howard was the top A-class rider.