2023 MERP Grand-Prix Series

GeorgiePorgie said:
But the Etiquette is to move in these woods racing things for guys that are significantly faster, right ?
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Good thing its not woods racing, its merpin baby!!

The more they rev the slower I go in the woods. Then you hit the moto track and put a big gap on them. Just to head back into the woods and wait for them to get pissed again. These cat and mouse games are fun to play and I think that everyone loves when they hit their preferred portion of the course.
 
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$1,250!
 
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Tiny Pee Wee bikes! Changing up your schedule slightly - goal is to give the fast 50 kids and pdubs better racing by splitting them up AND make our scoring more accurate by helping with the lapper situation.

Big skill level differences when it comes to pdubs and cobra kids.

Party on! HH this weekend!
 
Presented by SRS Suspension and Trackside Support

Sunday, September 16th
Linville, Ohio
Words: Bierbower
Photo:Moran

Perfect.

That’s the only way we can sum up this weekend at Honda Hills - I want to start off by saying a MASSIVE thank you to Levi and the entire Baker family for inviting us to their facility and letting us put on a GP. The amount to time and effort they have put into bringing Honda Hills back from a nearly 20 year hiatus should not go unnoticed.

The Baker crew does right by this historic facility - HH is hallowed ground for American Motocross and we should be so thankful for their families dedication put toward saving this legacy Motocross track. Great people - great track. Support them. Thank you so much for having us and I think it’s safe to say this isn’t the last GP you’re going to see at Honda Hills.

As for the racing - we cranked up the intensity this weekend. A short course with a wider woods loop meant from green to checkers it was hammer down. High speeds and many laps lended itself to some incredible racing action. The B class once again caught my eye as I watched 3 riders absolutely drag themselves into the deep end battling the full 35 minutes. More on that later. Our mini bike racers locked horns and these kids were on the GAS. Late season it’s easy to see that our riders are on form and pushing hard to snag some good results late in the year.

We rode under the Roger Decoster bridge! A whole pile of 50+ riders showed up once again - some of these guys haven’t been to HH in decades.

We found out why it was called shale hill - ‍

Many comments for this has been the favorite course of the season.

General housekeeping moto’s ran on time (!) - save one PeeWee course snafoo we would have (it wouldn’t be a MERP GP without some type of hiccup) - even with a full restart we managed to get the ship back on track and throw the green flag at 3:30 as promised.

It was an excellent weekend at Honda Hills - plain and simple. Amazing facility, great friends, great racing and more fun had racing motorcycles.

Oh and we’re back in the 400 entries club.

Malvern on deck - let’s do it right!

(Sorry for the late post! Just got home!)

Honda Hills
 

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It was awesome to spin laps at Honda Hills again. I was having flashbacks of 80 Jr class coming off that ski jump in the top corner of the track.

Fun event. Cut your damn hair
 
Was easily my favorite course as a whole this year. The moto track flows good, the jumps are safe and fun. I never knew Honda hills was capable of having ruts lol, but there were many to choose from! The woods we’re wide open, some good hot lines formed, and the trail turned silty, and rooty! The shale hill was a nice touch, rode down it Saturday on my mtb and was stoked to know it was going to be a part of the track, man did it give a lot of people trouble! Overall i think this was the best merp this year, and that’s saying something bc crown canyon was a hard one to beat!
 
Didn’t get to race the merp but got to meet jack for the first time. Great talking to him. First time at Honda hills and the facility itself is great for events with a ton of good flat parking with good grass. Track was a little goofy. Super short and jump faces were goofy. Still had fun and glad I got to ride something new. Good to hear they had a huge turnout. Jack said Saturday was the biggest practice they have ever had.
 
Romanyak256 said:
Was easily my favorite course as a whole this year. The moto track flows good, the jumps are safe and fun. I never knew Honda hills was capable of having ruts lol, but there were many to choose from! The woods were wide open, some good hot lines formed, and the trail turned silty, and rooty! The shale hill was a nice touch, rode down it Saturday on my mtb and was stoked to know it was going to be a part of the track, man did it give a lot of people trouble! Overall i think this was the best merp this year, and that’s saying something bc crown canyon was a hard one to beat!
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Everyone is stoked on the course. We got way nervous when jojo Cunningham was running laptimes on his pit bike around 5 minutes - at that point it’s too late to add anything but it worked out great! A nice change of pace from Beans I think. Faster woods loop so racers just dropped the hammer. A lot more laps made for a rougher track.
 
Shout out to Levi and the HH crew for the track prep - they got the water in the track Saturday night and that is massive with that kind of dirt. You can’t catch up when it’s this hot and dry and the track held up well until about the 3pm race.

Walking the track after I found plenty of that classic HH blue groove.
 
Mcaupp22 said:
Didn’t get to race the merp but got to meet jack for the first time. Great talking to him. First time at Honda hills and the facility itself is great for events with a ton of good flat parking with good grass. Track was a little goofy. Super short and jump faces were goofy. Still had fun and glad I got to ride something new. Good to hear they had a huge turnout. Jack said Saturday was the biggest practice they have ever had.
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I think they might have had better numbers for their first practice after reopening but none the less it was a great turnout for Saturday.

A lot of our northern crew followed us down to get some seat time and check out the track.
 
For those that did practice.

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Honda Hills 9.9.23 - Adam Parks

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Logan loved the lay out, hated the shale hill lol. He is pampered with the prep of beans, rt62 and Briarcliff, so he didn't like the big chunks. But I told him that's part of it. He was super sore from a digger he took at the end of practice, but managed to finish all three races.
 
Fun track, it was tricky for me finding traction most places. Had a great race with friends in the 50 class, like you said, lots of us on the line! Just remembering how bad im out of shape.
 
I say it every year but if you’ve ever been interested in dipping your toe into GP’s - Malvern is the perfect one.

The track is always a blast - Bobby crushes the prep. It’s not a ton of woods - the woods loop we use is really fun and mountain bike style trails.

No membership fees to deal with - reasonably priced classes and gets cheaper as you pick up more classes.

Saturday evening we’re going to have a lot going on in terms of fun stuff.

Vintage bike show and shine and chili cook off - nothing crazy just chopping it up about old bikes and how the season went as a whole.
 
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