Hawk Wins One

Mark Kariya | May 15, 2006

Am Pro Yamaha’s Barry Hawk took full advantage of a good start and went on to collect his first win of the year at round four of the Parts Unlimited Off-Road Motorcycle and ATV Nationals, in Rio Grande, Ohio, May 14. After dueling briefly with Honda-mounted Paul Whibley, Hawk grabbed the lead for good on the first lap of the Pirelli Coal Miner Cross Country and slowly but steadily motored away on his Factory Connection/FMF/MSR YZ250 to earn the winner’s $1000 prize.

Charlie Mullins, Hawk’s Am Pro Yamaha teammate, also enjoyed a good start and moved into second place on the second lap of the muddy and very slick race. But in a situation reminiscent of round three, Mullins got stuck in a muddy, rutted bottleneck on the last lap. That gave two-time and reigning OMA champion Jimmy Jarrett the break he was waiting for, and he found a way around the bottleneck on his Andrews Cycles/Maxxis/Moose RM250, giving him second overall, two minutes behind Hawk after two and a half hours. Mullins would hang on for third, just over a minute behind Jarrett.

Whibley maintained his quick pace to claim fourth on his Summers Racing/FMF/Moose CRF250R, while local hero Travis Green rounded out the top five on his Team Green/Dunlop/Moose KX250.

“All day I just tried to ride mistake-free and not do anything stupid,” Hawk said.

Mullins hung close to him until after the halfway mark when he got hung up in a creek section, allowing Hawk to open up his lead substantially for the first time.

“There were actually a couple sections that got really gnarly there, like this one down in the valley and one other one,” Hawk said. “It made you think. You had to pick a good line. You couldn’t just blow through it. It was fun.”