Illinois racers showed last season that they don’t take kindly to intruders treading on their turf and the second annual Midwest Meltdown, presented by Checkpoint Off-Road, looked to follow a similar trend. Tanner Whipple, the current ring-leader of the fightin’ Illini, jumped to an early race lead and set course to have his name etched on the Greg Moss Memorial trophy right below his 2019 mark.
Veteran and semi-retired, GNCC racer Chris Bach, who has a 2019 BBXC win to his credit, had other ideas about the traveling trophy staying in the hands of the locals and checked out right on Whipple’s heels early in the race. Despite a BBXC record 27 front row starters, the two KTM-mounted riders were the class of the field, with two-time defending series Champ Nathan Ferderer never really able to mount a charge.
Whipple road a close to as flawless a race as possible, using his smooth and consistent riding style to maintain a 5-15 second gap on Bach. Until the final lap…
With two miles to go, Whipple made a costly mistake in a creek crossing that had several optional hot lines jumping in and out of the bottoms. A lapper stuck in one of the deep ruts jumping out of the bottoms caused him to loose focus for a split second, delaying his line choice and allowing the charging Bach to get past. At the finish, Bach crossed the line mere seconds ahead of Whipple capping a hard-earned win in a great dual by both riders. Ferderer crossed the line in third, followed by Minnesota’s Logan Kittock and Illinois’s Colt Converse.
The course was awesome, it was pretty deceiving though it was really slick. It took me a little bit to figure out how to race the track, I was really good at riding it but I wasn’t good at racing it for probably the first hour. I took a little breather lap after I made a lot of mistakes and settled into a pace and started riding third gear more and clip it around pretty good. I knew my only hope was to put in a late charge and catch Tanner off guard and that’s what I did. I got the white flag and dropped the hammer. Tanner hesitated on going left or right and I went right and got around him.
Chris Bach –
Wisconsin off-road legend J.D. Friebel pulled the front row holeshot for the second straight year, edging Whipple to the line by a knobby to claim the SSi Decals $100 cash bonus. Jhadyn Walker was first across the line of the second row A class starters and scored $50 from SSi for being quick on the trigger in his flight.
The amateur classes also saw huge numbers roll to the line with Easton Morgan getting the A Overall win, Lake Plowman getting the Overall in the B ranks.
Up next for the Hoosier Tires Border Battle XC series is the Round 3 Badger Brawl in Hixton, Wisconsin on August 9.
