Nick Fahringer Wins Arkansas OMA

Cycle News Staff | May 27, 2013
  Nick Fahringer captured his first OMA win in Arkansas. Photography by John Gasso.

 

Nick Fahringer captured his first career OMA win. Photography by John Gasso.

The OMA Nationals Springfield Armory Chaffee Crossing XC in Fort Smith, Arkansas, May 25, saw a new winner atop the podium.

Nick Fahringer pushed his ARR PG Moose Racing Husaberg out front early and used his enduro skills to maintain a gap over the field on a course filled with fresh trails, roots and stumps. Not to mention a bike-swallowing swamp. The trail was brutal but Fahringer was unstoppable.

While the holeshot king Paul Whibley again captured the FMF Holeshot money on his AmPro Yamaha, it was Fahringer taking the point and setting a very rapid pace, keeping the defending OMA Champion, Whibley, as well as the entire field, a safe distance behind. By the time everyone else picked up their pace as the trail burned into shape, Fahringer had amassed an insurmountable gap, giving the Husaberg rider his first ever OMA Nationals victory.

Whibley held on for second place, followed by the Husaberg’s Russell Bobbitt, who rounded out the podium.

FMF KTM’s Kailub Russell took fourth place ahead of Obermeyer Yamaha’s Josh Weisenfels, who was racing in the inaugural Pro-Two class. The local racer took first in class and fifth overall, followed by the Mainville Powersports YZ250 of fellow Pro Two racer and Fort Smith resident Zach Ingram.

The sixth-placed Yamaha of Ingram was the last machine to complete seven laps of the gnarly track.

“This is my first OMA win,” Fahringer said. “I’ve probably raced 50 of these things already. I don’t know why, I’m more of an enduro rider than a cross-country racer. I just decided to race this time I guess.”

 

OVERALL

1. Nick Fahringer (Hbg)

2. Paul Whibley (Yam)

3. Russell Bobbitt (Hbg)

4. Kailub Russell (KTM)

5. Josh Weisenfels (Yam)

 

By John Gasso