Dirt bike race series kicks off in Starkville
The nation’s top off-road motorcycle racing series will begin in Starkville tonight. Kicker AMA Arenacross is a ten-round dirt bike racing series held in arenas across America, attracting elite professional and amateur competitors to battle for nightly event accolades and to accumulate overall series points. Anywhere from 300 to 700 riders travel to each event and compete throughout the day in qualifying races with a goal of securing their spot in the main event taking place that evening.
The first two rounds of the racing series will take place at the Mississippi Horse Park on East Poor House Road tonight and Saturday.
Tod Hammock is the general manager for the Arenacross racing series, and he talked about why Starkville was chosen as not only a location for the series, but the location to where it will all kick off.
“We were here quite some time ago in 2006, and we had a really good crowd here. We like the arena floor, the size of it, and the type of dirt that was available to us,” said Hammock. “We thought about how not every state is open right now to do events like this, and Mississippi happened to be one that was open. We said, ‘You know what? We need to come back to Starkville.’ It’s pretty much how it all started for us, this was where we had one of our early events, so it’s special to us.”
For those who may not be familiar with Arenacross, Hammock gave some insight what it is all about.
“For someone who has never been to one of our events, more than likely you’ve seen it on TV at some point in their life. They’re in indoor arenas that are typically at like a hockey rink size or a little bigger, so it makes for some real loose, exciting racing action,” said Hammock. “It’s manmade jumps, and for
a lot of places we go to, we have to bring the dirt in. Some places like here we’re fortunate enough to have dirt. Anyway, we form a racecourse and we typically have up to 14 guys on the course at a time. Just like any other form of motorsport racing, we drop the start gate and the first guy to the checkered flag is the winner.”
Adam Hammock is Tod’s son who helps his father with operating the Arenacross
series, and he talked about how different this season will be from others in the past due to the current circumstances of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
“Obviously, we’ve had to kind of change our series a bit with where we’re going. The main challenge was figuring out how we could create an environment that is compliant of local ordinances, codes or mandates, and also make people feel comfortable for a live event,” said Adam. “For our guidelines for this weekend, we’ll have spaced seating, masks will be required for everyone, and having the building being air-circulated continuously. We’ve had to adapt and change in that regard. Obviously, it goes beyond that; but besides a few small changes, it feels as normal as we can get.”
Tod Hammock also said that tickets are available on the Stubwire website or at Village Cycle Center on Old Highway 82 East, and that you can also tune into the live stream for this weekend’s racing series with a Floracing membership.
The doors open at 6 p.m. both tonight and Saturday night and the events will start at 7 p.m.