People had a lot of questions leading into round-two of the CMRC/WEC Ontario Cross Country series at Burnt River. Most of those concerns focused around on scheduling conflict with an Offroad Ontario XC race; where would riders go, or more accurately, which riders would go where? Besides that, Burnt River Off-Road Vehicle Facility was hosting the opening round of the WEC DirtyBikes Sprint Enduro Series the day before. Would riders stay over to race both events?

Perhaps the biggest question was the weather. Rain. Burnt River is notorious for being wet, and this would be perhaps the wettest race yet. So how’d it go? In a word, excellent. By Saturday night the rain was gone, making the weather perfect for the Cross Country on Sunday. Most of the trails were drying out, but the waterholes remained very deep.The track for Sunday’s race was a nice mix of fast trails, singletrack and endurocross-style terrain, with some motocross elements thrown in.

They say a picture tells a thousand words, so lets roll.

The morning Pee-Wee riders had an aweome, rolling track to race on. After the race most of them just kept right on riding!

The Mini-Sr racers found the water! Clark Roylance wildly powerboats his way past the more cautious Tyler Greenlaw. Roylance’s gamble paid off, and he went on finish second behind Ryan Maenz. Wendy Maenz photo.

The morning class blasts off the line. Some of the best battles of the day were in the Beginner and Jr classes, with riders doing whatever it took to get out front before getting into the wettest parts of the course.

Brian West put away his trusty KDX and instead raced his Honda at Burnt River. He four-stroked his way a Spr.SR win!

Watching the slow parade of watered out bikes getting towed back to the pits became commonplace.

They used an abbreviated version of Saturday’s Sprint Enduro ‘Extreme Test’ in the Cross Country on Sunday. The riders who raced Saturday, no longer spooked by the hairy looking obstacles, had a definite advantage here.

Pin to win! As riders grew tired the log crossings went from being a trials-like dance to an all or nothing ballet of balls.

Still hobbling around and hardly able to kickstart his bike after crashing Saturday, Matt McCarthy pushed his way from dead-last to a very close fourth in the Jr. class.

This drop off kerplunked riders right between the electronic eyes of the WEC scoring system.

Riders in the morning classes traded paint for the entire two hours.

At the start of the Pro class Wojo narrowly earned himself a quick hundred bucks, courtesy of the Wiesner Insurance Holeshot award.

Jamie West was last off the line in the Intermediate class, but by the time they exited the gravel motocross track he was out front. He stretched his lead until he caught and passed some of the Pros! Then his Honda sucked water into the carb. It took 10 heartbreaking minutes to get it fixed, which dropped him back to third.

Chris VanHove spent the week pior to Burnt River in hospital, battling a serious infection resulting from hitting a tree the previous weekend. Then on the first lap the clutch on his RMZ250F went south. It took his crew several minutes in the pits to do a makeshift repair, which put him way behind. He rode wildly after that and eventually pushed his way back to third.

Most people think Wojo’s trials experience helped him at Burnt River, but he and I know it was really the Offroadmotorcycles.ca sticker on his front numberplate that made him so fast!

Some of the twisty singletrack was perfect, but other sections were very slimy.

Adam Millson Y-zed-ed himself to the second-step of the Pro podium.

Apparently Wojo comes from a long line of rope walkers and trapeeze artists.

The Blue-Shirt Brigade picked up a lot of brass this weekend. Brian West, Jamie West and Matt McCarthy await their turn on the box.

Ryan McFarlane truly deserved the www.offroadmotorcycles.ca Port Powersports Weekend Warrior Award. A race volunteer, he cheerfully worked all weekend on the event. He stayed up late Saturday night helping us clean up Matt’s Suzuki so we could repair it to race Sunday. On Sunday he rode his gigantic XR650L dual sport bike around the cross-country course all day, logging 95km while working as a course marshall!

Rocks, rain and mud scared most of the female racers away. Nancy Dewar, a experienced Superbike road racer, watched CMRC/WEC Ontario Cross Country Championship round-one race a Port Colborne a couple weeks ago. Figuring she too could do handle this kind of racing, she brought her dirt bike to Burnt River. She struggled, but finished and had a riot!

Cha-ching! The CMRC/WEC Cross Country Championship heats up at round-three, June 20th at MotoPark!