Culbreth Recounts Christmas Classic

By Johnny Culbreth

Lexington, Virginia was certainly a change of venue for those of us that are used to being in Downtown Columbus for Christmas. A smaller arena didn't allow for as big of a track, but it sure made for some great "bar to bar" racing. Great weather, perfect track conditions and almost 200 motos provided an action-packed weekend.

Tyler Faoro and CJ McGuire dominated their motos in Saturday's President's Cup Elite Open. In the main Faoro grabbed the lead going into turn one, only to take a huge digger going in. This allowed McGuire to cruise to a win followed by Harrison Britt and Allen Currier. There were only two racks, 9 riders, in this open but Day One of the Christmas Classic was to be a different story the following day.

On Sunday, Elite Open hosted 37 riders and plenty of fast action. Faoro and McGuire were back in the hunt but they were joined by such names as Dinger, Owens, Salazar, Lubbe, Kelty, Delizia…the list goes on. In the main it looked as if Matt Kelty would lead it wire to wire. Enter Phil Delizia. As Phil and Sergio followed Kelty into the second turn, Phil decided to blast Kelty out of the lead. Delizia went over the turn, and Salazar makes it by for the win followed by Tyler Faoro for the second spot. Kelty recovered to hold off Tim Dinger for the third spot.

Monday brought out 27 riders in the Elite Open. The competition was tough again. The only two riders to win two of their motos were Faoro and McGuire. The main came down to an all-out drag race, with Sergio grabbing the line into turn one…and the race was on. Kelty and Lubbe were in hot pursuit but were unable to catch up leaving Salazar with the double win for the two-day national. Gavin Lubbe and Joey Albright had a huge crash on the third straight. Albright was slow to get up, but seemed to be okay after the cobwebs cleared.

In Expert news, Addison Bike's Frank "The Tank" Hoskins managed to crash in Friday's practice breaking a bone in his right thumb area. Best of luck to him and a speedy recovery.

Austin Loebe dominated the 15x class for his new sponsor, Rennen/Intense. London Wilmot has once again managed to put together a very competitive team, winning the National Team battle for Day One. Factory Formula's newest acquisition, 10x Cameron Moore, proved to be a smart move as Cam completely destroyed the 10 expert class all three days. This kid from North Carolina is definitly on fire. Another standout this weekend had to be One Bicycle's Maliek Byndloss. This kid showed the 13x class a thing or two and didn't lose a lap all three days.

All said and done, the new venue probably exceeded most people's expectations. We still will miss Columbus but this race proved a lot of people wrong and can only get better as the years go on.

Thanks to Johnny for the race report. Check out his site for more photos of this event
www.johnnyculbreth.com