A good friend of mine Steve Wilmington has said many times before that I needed to check out a place called Big Game Raceway in Hubbard, Ohio.
He tries to make it any time they run.
Well, yesterday I made my way out East for the very first time to Big Game. I was there as a spectator of a CRA race being promoted by Hand Racing Promotions.
I had a ball!
The place is cool……very cool.
Easy to get to. Many major thoroughfares lead to the general area.
Less than a mile or so off the highway with good roads in.
Two lanes taking entry fees and waiver signing made for quick and easy entrance.
Plenty of level parking with gravel roadways dividing the pit lanes. Some parking has trees for shade.
A good size, clean, permanent bathroom facility!!! 1000 extra bonus points!
Nice fencing around the track with decent viewing of the raceway.
Big Game has two fully functioning separate circuits!
One Upper Track and one Lower Track. Each has their own Staging, Starting Gates and Finish lines. They can run simultaneously and never interfere with what’s going on at the other. Major SWEETNESS!
The dirt at Big Game is unique…..like nothing I’ve seen before in my 40 years of racing in Ohio. It asks to be ridden on by knobbies and ridden on with a heavy throttle!
The soil is a nice dark brown, almost black. It’s very loamy and breaks up rather than sticks together.
You could see the riders enjoying the full hook-up of traction and ducking the buckets of roost. The sound of big 450’s working hard as they claw with authority up the winding sweepers gave me chills .
Every rider that I spoke with said they enjoy the layout. It’s a combination of some pretty fast sections along the back and some good tight turns in the front.
It has a few sweeping uphill and downhill turns that looked like a total riot to me.
The jumps range from small seat-bounce doubles out of turns to a massive table in the middle that most don’t pull the trigger on.
Some of the bigger doubles have a “skip-it” lane offering the option not to air it out if the rider feels the risk is not worth the reward. From what I saw yesterday, I would venture to say that many choose to use the “skip-it” lanes.
Practice was plentiful. None of the riders I went with had ever set a wheel on the track before yet everyone felt comfortable with amount of track time offered before racing commenced.
The racing started early in the A.M. and clicked off throughout the day with precision.
The P.A. system works well and can be heard throughout the facility without being overly loud or harsh.
The announcing was first class….Major kudos to whoever was behind the microphone!!!!!
The classes and staging needs were called out consistently throughout the day and this needed to be done for two tracks running simultaneously. (Not an easy task).
Over the P.A., the Racing Action was being followed lap after lap, moto after moto. It was described with enthusiasm and excitement. For every class Full Names were used, Racing numbers were included, last race performances were called out and a little history or background was included as well. Top notch announcing!! ALL DAY LONG!
As said earlier, the racing clicked off with precision. No dicking around…..The awards were cool, handed out quickly and everyone was done racing by early afternoon.
It was a great day to be at the Motocross races!......Thanks to Hand Racing Promotions and Big Game Raceway!
