Odenton, MD. The first ever Shogun Motorsports 2-stroke Jamboree and Mosquito Extermination Festival brought together 2 and 4 wheel racers at the fabulous Beaverun Motorsports Complex in Pennsylvania. The sound of over a hundred and thirty 2-stroke engines was enough to bring tears to the eyes of the spectators. And that’s not just due to the smoke in the air! Repsol, the official oil sponsor of the event, used this event as an opportunity to unveil their new 2T Competition oil to this North American 2-stroke racing community.
Kyle Ferris snagged pole position in the Rising Sun Cycles 125GP qualifying on Saturday with a time of 1:02.06. He narrowly edged out Canadian, Alex Welsh, and twelve-year-old PJ Jacobsen along with the rest of the 48-bike field. In the Motion Pro 250GP qualifying, Alex Welsh laid down an impressive 1:00.86 time to claim pole position. He was followed merely .3 seconds back by Bill Himmelsbach, and Chris Pyles. The grid would be packed full with 41-bikes all shooting for the top spot and a piece of the $2500 prize money.
The RSC 125GP race was a rabid fight for the lead, with 8 riders jockeying for position. Twelve-year-old racer, PJ Jacobsen of Team Celtic Racing, fought his way up to the front with Alex Welsh and Scott Smallwood, and Nobi Iso hot on his heals. Smallwood and Iso held on to the front pack for a large part of the 20-lap event, but started to fade when PJ picked up the pace. Dave Celento, Mike Orien, Tom Swager, John Hjelm, and Steve Wenner also couldn’t keep pace and started to fall further behind. PJ rode an extremely mature race as he kept within a few tenths of a second every single lap, even when mowing through the backmarkers. But, every time he would open up a gap on Alex, it would be closed a lap later. It was shaping up to be a photo finish when on lap 15, Welsh crashed in turn 10 leaving PJ as the clear winner.
Team Celtic Racing owner, Barry Gilsenan said, “PJ completely exceeded our expectations with the win, further solidifying the talent of this young rider. All of us at Celtic Racing are thrilled with the opportunity to help PJ make the transition from dirt track to road racing a successful one.”
Smallwood rode a very smooth race to clinch second. Nobi Iso was nearly caught as Celento and Orien duked it out for fourth place and crossed the line with Celento edging out Orien by a few inches.
The Motion Pro 250GP race was marred by a red flag shortly after the start as Kory Gill pitched his TZ250 away in turn one and was left lying in the middle of the corner. The restart saw Chris Pyles leading Bill Himmelsbach, Sean Wray, John Dempsey and Steve Wenner for the first eight laps. On lap nine, cagey veteran Bill Himmelsbach put his powerful Yamaha TZ250 into the lead. Sean Wray slipped by Pyles as well, and proceeded to set his sights on Himmelsbach. Pyles, who was riding injured from a crash during qualifying, started to fall off the pace a little and left the two veterans to do battle. While Wray kept passing Himmelsbach on the straights, Bill put his track knowledge to work and would take back the position in the turns. Despite his best efforts, Wray couldn’t make the pass stick, and had to settle for second place after a 20-lap battle. Pyles was able to hang on for third place ahead of Matt Cooper and Alain Brault.
Aside from the USGPRU 125GP and 250GP classes, this weekend saw great racing in both the Middleweight and Heavyweight classes. Joe Pomeroy took the win in Middleweight, and Mike Himmelsbach rode Russ Bigley’s Yamaha TZ750 to a very impressive win in the Heavyweight event.
In the Metrakit’s race, Chris Heiser won on his 72cc racer. In the kart racing series, C. Bunneu won the Maxxis Formula 125 race and Johnny West won the Intercom 250cc shifter kart race. T. Blance won the CLK 125 race.
Rising Sun Cycles 125GP Race Results: 1. PJ Jacobsen Hon 2. Scott Smallwood Hon 3. Nobi Iso Apr 4. Dave Celento Hon 5. Mike Orien Hon 6. Tom Swager Hon 7. John Hjelm Hon 8. Steve Wenner Hon 9. Merle Eschman Hon 10. Frank Merdocca Hon 11. Glen Pison Hon 12. Travis Huffman Hon 13. Rich Kjar Hon 14. Colin Cameron Hon 15. Mike Santelia Hon 16. Mark Dennis Hon 17. Rick Bulmann Hon 18. Bill Duran Hon 19. Rebecca Henn Hon 20. Chris Vest Hon 21. Bill Clery Hon 22. Alex Welsh TSR 23. Steve Belknap Hon 24. L. Silberstein Hon 25. E. Sak Hon 26. Mark Welsh Hon 27. J. Lemax Hon 28. Don Murfin Hon 29. Marcus Matthews Hon 30. Brian Kjar Hon 31. Bruce Lind Yam 32. Nick Jakubowski Hon 33. P. Kearns Hon 34. Sam Clark Yam 35. T. Henshaw Hon 36. Chris Temeyden Hon 37. Brian Burton Hon 38. Paul Duval Hon 39. A. Acquisiri Hon 40. Barry Gilsenan Apr 41. Paul Hopkins Hon 42. Kyle Ferris DNF 43. Bill Cole DNS 44. Mark Whitney DNS 45. Mark White DNS 46. Chris Pyles DNS 47. Drake Core DNS 48. Robert Taylor DNS
Motion Pro 250GP Race Results: 1. Bill Himmelsbach Yam 2. Sean Wray Yam 3. Chris Pyles Yam 4. Matt Cooper Hon 5. Alain Brault Yam 6. Steve Wenner Hon 7. John Dempsey Yam 8. Tom Swager Yam 9. Mark St. Amand Yam 10. Bruce Lind Yam 11. Colin Cameron Unk 12. Tom Fournier Yam 13. Mark Stiles Yam 14. Mike Aboyoun Hon 15. Jim Bergey Hon 16. Randy Norian Unk 17. Ed Jokinen Apr 18. Jerry Sadler Unk 19. David Karten Unk 20. Joe Melchionda Yam 21. Nick Colley Yam 22. Mark Jaeckle Unk 23. Todd Urig Unk 24. Chris Quillman Yam 25. Nobi Iso Yam 26. Tom DiNardo Yam 27. Dane Walther Yam 28. Kyle Ferris Hon 29. Frank Murdocca DNF 30. Dave Celento DNS 31. Mike Wright DNS 32. Rebecca Henn DNS 33. Paul Hopkins DNS 34. Mike Santelia DNS 35. Jeff Federicci DNS 36. Sam Clark DNS 37. Mike Jakubowski DNS 38. Gord MacKay DNF 39. Alex Welsh DNF 40. Rick Bulmann DNS 41. Jim Bonner DNF 42. John Crook DNS 43. Ed Sak DNS