Hungry Horse motocross racing back on track

After three years of hard work and labor, the Hungry Horse Motocross track is back in shape and ready to hold races.

Located a mile east of the Hungry Horse Ranger Station below the dam, the track was used by dirt bikes and ATVs from 1980 to 2007. Races in the past have drawn more than 500 riders in 33 events. Many riders consider it one of the toughest in the state.

The track fell into disrepair after the last race there in 2007, but through the work of Jeff Wentzel and the Flathead Dirt Riders Association, a sanctioned race will be held there this spring.

“The track was falling apart, getting degraded,” Wentzel said. “I approached the Forest Service about trying to do some work on it. The Forest Service was kind of apprehensive about it because they didn’t want someone to do some work and just leave it alone. They wanted a club to take care of it and take responsibility for it and do maintenance on a repetitive basis.”

Wentzel started the Flathead Dirt Riders Association and got the work started. Unable to get a state grant for the work, he landed a grant from the Yamaha Motor Co., which paid for not only repair of the current track but helped add a children’s track.

“A lot of smaller bikes, like 50 cc, can’t ride on the bigger track,” Wentzel said. “For less experienced people, too, so they have a place to ride and not get in the way of the more experienced riders if they didn’t want to run side by side.”

To reduce future maintenance costs, the association re-routed the track to improve drainage and prevent erosion. They repaired ruts, cleared rocks and added jumps to return the site to its former glory.

“It was pretty bad,” Wentzel said. “It’s a hilly track. So a lot of the hills had deep ravines. You get the snow runoff. People were circumventing the track and going into the woods on certain parts because it was washed out.”

In certain areas, he said, the track is 15 feet across but riders stuck to a 2-3 foot wide space.

“Then the water — you’d get huge puddles and have to ride around those,” Wentzel said. “With the ’dozer, we were able to make culverts and stuff like that to let it all run off.”

The High Country Motocross Association approached Wentzel this winter about bringing racing back to the track The first race will take place Sunday, May 4.

“Most of the tracks in the state are on flat ground,” Wentzel said. “They’ll bring in dirt and build up jumps and what not. Hungry Horse just follows a natural terrain. There’s a lot of steep uphills and steep downhills. You don’t really have that at a lot of the other tracks. A lot of people say it’s one of the harder tracks to ride — it takes a lot of physical ability.”

Anyone interested in helping out with the race can e-mail fhdirtrider@gmail.com.

“I’m really amped up about it,” Wentzel said. “You go there on a weekend and there’s a dozen or so people on the track. They’re in and out of there all day long. It’s a big deal to the local riding community. They’ve had races for about three decades or so.”