BONNE TERRE, MO – What began as a partly sunny, 68-degree day in Bonne Terre soon brought soggy sorrows of a botched benefit and an abrupt end to racing action at Big River Sand Drags.
The track was in great shape. Work had been completed to ready the Port-a-Tree timing system printer and 60 ft. sensors, which had previously been out of service. New two-way radios had even been purchased to improve track communication. Fifty-one competitors turned out to show their support for 5-year old Seth Barnes of Valle Mines. He was diagnosed with leukemia last November. An induction ceremony was held to welcome Seth into the Big River Sand Drags racing family as showers slowly fell from above. Raffles and racing were well underway when Mother Nature came knocking this Mother’s Day weekend.“After completing our first three ATV classes, the rain just shut us down,” said a disappointed James Merseal, co-owner of BRSD. “A rain check has been issued which will postpone racing of the remaining four classes until May 17th.”
Next Saturday will bring King’s Construction to Big River as well as an extension of the “Racing for Seth” benefit and a rain delayed competition of the Super Pro ATV, Vehicle E.T., Unlimited ATV and Competition Eliminator classes. All benefit raffle purchases will be held over as well. As for the three completed classes, the results are as follows:
In Pee Wee ATV, we again saw only two competitors forcing a best two of three finale. Justin Dee of Leadwood took home first place while Tyler Jasper of Barnhart, MO received second.
In Junior ATV, Reagan Posey of Fults, IL was the first place winner with Skyler Barker of Waterloo, IL taking second place and top eliminator honors.
Finally, in Pro ATV, Rita Dickerson of St. Louis won the first place race as the rain kept on and on. The weather forced a shutdown causing second round in Pro to be forfeited. In the event of a rain out, the loser of the first place race is awarded second. In this case, Trevor Cain of Potosi took home the victory. No top eliminator was allowed.
Local radio station B104.3 allowed co-owner Lisa Merseal and track announcer Jason Harris to plug the benefit Friday afternoon. “Two lucky winners received free tickets to the benefit race,” mentioned Merseal, “congratulations to Joshua Schaefer and Ben Sweet. Please feel free to attend next week.”
Saturday’s rain out still makes less than a dozen in the tracks seventeen-year history in Bonne Terre. It just goes to show that not even hard work and costly preparation can keep Mother Nature from doing what she does best.
Major contributors to the “Racing for Seth” benefit will be mentioned in next week’s story. Lastly, Happy Mother’s Day to all of the racing moms out there.*Press Release contributed by Jason Harris - Big River Sand Drags*