Time to take a look back at the off road motorcycle season and get ready for the one that will start next month. Following the article is a photo gallery of most of the champions.

The MRANN Year in Review takes a look back at the 2016 season and the series overall points champion. For him it signals a change in direction while for others it sets the stage for improvements and maybe future titles.

But at the end of 2016 Dennis Belingheri won the overall champion. It wasn’t an easy and it’s probably his last in this series.

Dennis Belingheri got the 2016 season started with a win at Nightingale.

“The goal in 2016 was to win the MRANN championship and it was a lot harder than I thought because there are a lot of fast kids,” he said. “And getting older doesn’t mean healing quicker when you get hurt.”

As the season progressed his main competition was Dan Capparelli as they went through the events.

“Dan’s a fast guy and we’ve always raced together for the last four or five years,” Belingheri said. “I just knew after I won Winnemucca , the first one, all I had to do was do good at Tankslapper race and do good at the last race and I had it tied up. And Dan went and did Six Days, which meant he missed a race. It was a good year and but it was a hard year as it’s not easy going for overall wins at 47.”

For Belingheri the year started out well when he won the first race of the season then capped the year with a second overall at the final race, the second one at Winnemucca.

Here is the Belingheri family at the MRANN awards banquet.
Photo courtesy – MRANN.

Now he’s planning for a very different year.

“Well this season I’m going to take a back seat to the local series and going to concentrate more on racing Best In The Desert and the Score series in Baja with my new team, which is C&J Machinery out of New Mexico. So we have a guy that will finance the team and I go down, race and have fun and this give me an excuse to go do it,” he said.

His race at the recent Baja 1000 also gave him a new nickname to go along with the Desert Fox. Now he’s “El Zorro de Desierto.”

This year he’s going to race nine events and five of them are in Mexico. But the main focus will be on helping his son.

“I wanted to make sure Ezra had a good time, was learning so in 2017 he’s moving to big bikes and I’m going to focus on him. I’ll probably do some of the races helping him out and we’re going to do the team races which will be fun,” he said. “Besides that I told my wife I’m not going to go for the series, concentrate on helping Ezra do good and I think he’ll be an expert by the end of the year.”

There is however one race he intends to compete in.

“I’ll probably come out and do Trailblazer race because I’ve won it eight times so might as well try and a ninth time. And it’s always good cause it’s wet dirt,” he said.

Looking over the past season Belingheri finished with 237 points while Capparelli ended up with 174. Those two were way ahead of any other of their competitors.

The Saturday group had its own group of class champions.

In the junior or Pee Wee classes Jesse Miller was the 6 and Under champion while Jacob Engelke won the 7 and Up title and Ava Delaney topped the 4-Stroke PW class.

In the 65cc class amateur Austin Hough was the points champion while runner up Anthony Braun topped the experts and Lukas Dean was the Novice champion.

In the 100cc class expert Ezra Belingheri was the overall champion followed by amateur Riley Wood while Camie Ingram topped the novice division.

Expert Taylor Kemp was the Woman’s champion while third place Christina Courtney earned the amateur title and the novice champ was Nikki Hannon.

The Bombers race on Saturday and Scott Martin was the overall champion.

This year the series started Team Races as part of its Saturday program. They were very popular to say the least and over the entire season there were 71, two-rider teams competing.

In the end Dennis Beliingheri and Steve Tichenor were the champions followed by Ed Sellers Jr. and Donovyn Morris while the third place team was Chris Maas and Joe Gatie.

Now it’s time to look at the Sunday classes and their champions.

Starting with the 100cc class two experts Austin Wilson and Chris Maas were one-two while amateur Kurtis Gray was third and novice C.J. LaCruze finished fifth in overall points.

One close race was in the 250cc class where expert Jesse Cunnally ended up only 30 points ahead of runner up Devin Walker, who is an amateur. Fourth place was novice Anthony Monachelli.

In the 4-Stroke class Ed Sellers Jr. won that title by only 50 points over runner-up Donavyn Morris. The top three were all experts but third place Jeffrey Tabrizi was only two points ahead of amateur Nathan Owen while the novice winner was ninth place Jared Silva.

The Open class had a pair of amateurs finish one-two with Dane Johnson winning the title ahead of Colton Scudder while expert Irving Powers wound up third and 14th place Cody Jones topped the novice riders.

As we head into the veteran classes expert Josh Wilson as the Over 30 champion with Jake Himphill taking the amateur division and Pete Marzona topped the novice section.

Of course Dennis Belingheri was the Over 40 champion while the amateur winner was Chuck Faul while John Rychlik took novice honors.

Moving up the age bracket expert Jeff Miller topped the Over 50 ranks followed by amateur Steve Morgan while the highest ranked novice was fifth place John Burnham.

In the ancient warriors of the Over 60 class Chris Loer was the champion followed by Pete Prichard and Greg Ekins.

Finally amateur Beth Legenbauer was not only the Women’s champion but the only one that competed in all of the races, except the one her club hosted. Jolene Harsch was second while Danielle Walkiewicz finished third.

All in all it was a good season with some hard racing and a lot of good times for all. Now everyone is starting or has gotten ready for the first race of the year on the weekend of February 18/19.

OTHER RACING NEWS:

Last week the off road racing community lost one of its best promoters, the one that created the Best In The Desert series in 1984.

The late Casey Folks, who created the Best in the Desert series passed away on January 11.
Photo courtesy – race-dezert.com.

Casey Folks suffered a massive stroke on January 7th and, despite the best efforts of doctors passed away on January 11th.

Starting with a motorcycle shop he created the BID for those but in 1996 created the Vegas to Reno race. It was opened up to include cars, trucks and quads as well as motorcycle.

One of his signature moves was to thank all the racers as they crossed the finish line.

In 2012 he was inducted into the Off Road Motorsports Hall of Fame.

Despite this tremendous loss his team is going forward with the series and it should continue for years to come.

We here at Nvracingnews.com wish to offer our condolences to his family, both personal and racing. His loss will be felt for a long time.

• At this week’s annual Chili Bowl there was one Northern Nevada driver that had a good time. Minden’s Tanner Thorson was 4th in the B main, started 20th in the 55-lap A main and finished 4th.

• Last week Robert Taylor announced the 2017 members of Team Testa. Here is the list.

T.J. Taylor Parker Ross

Jeff Butler Cash Dunbar

Tommy Jackson Jett Lloyd

Colton Chamness Nakanna Domingo

Chad Heishman Bodhi Tanner

Shane Vandamme Elijah Auble

Sam Roby Ashtyn Shepard

Gaven Giomi Jared Mariscal

Tyler Criitendenramsey Chandler Munoz

Greg Fawcett Wyatt Brixey

Nate Dains Ty Pedotti

Emmett Pedotti Ramsey Pedotte

Collin McHaney Ty Bibee

Bo Smith Jim Shepard

Sean Botelho Ian Knight

Austin Walker William Jardine

Samantha Monz Kenny Bell

Terry Bostard

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2017 MRANN SEASON RESULTS

+ Top 20*: #1 Dennis Belingheri, 40+ Exp., #2 Dan Capparelli, 40+ Exp., #3. Willy Heiss, 30+ Exp., #4 Irving Powers, Open Exp., #5. Jeffrey Tabrizi, 4-Stk Exp., #8. Randy Adams, 40+ Exp., #9 Ed Sellers Jr., 4-Stk. Exp., #10 Levi Hutchings, Open Exp., #11 Steve Tichnor, 0-30 Exp., #12 Austin Wilson, 200 Exp., #13 Joseph Wassen, 250 Exp., #14 Titan McKibben, 40+ Exp., #15 Michael Barenback, 30+ Exp., #16 Jack Reader, 40+, #17. Josh Wilson, 30+ Exp., #18 Pat Miller, 250 Exp.,#19 Reece Honea, Open Exp., #20 Austin Serpa, 250 Exp.

* – These riders will use their overall number in blue during the 2017 season.

• 2017 Class Champions:

+ 200cc: Exp. Austin Wilson, Ama. Kurtis Gray, Novice C.J. LaCruze.

+ 250cc: Exp. Jess Cunnally, Ama. Devin Walker, Nov. Anthony Monachelli.

+ 4-Stroke: Exp. Ed Sellers Jr., Ama. Nathan Owen, Nov. Jared Silva.

+ Open: Ama. Dane Johnson, Exp. Irving Powers, Nov. Cody Jones.

+ Over 30: Exp. Josh Wilson, Ama. Jake Himphill, Nov. Pete Marzona.

+ Over 40: Exp. Dennis Belingheri, Ama. Chuck Faul, Nov. John Rychlik.

+ Over 50: Exp. Jeff Miller, Ama. Steve Morgan, Nov. John Burnham.

+ Over 60: All Exp. Chris Loer, Pete Prichard, Greg Elkins.

+ Women: Ama. Beth Legenbauer, Nov. Jolene Harsch.

• Team Race Standing*s: 1. Dennis Belingheri/Steve Tichenor, 2. Ed Sellers Jr., Donovyn Morris, 3. Chris Maas, Joe Gatie, 4. Austin Wilson, Josh Wilson, 5. Jeff Engelke, Jake Himphil,6. Dan Capparelli, Levi Hutchings, 7. Jesse Richardson, Dane Johnson, 8. Reece Honea, Jake Osborn, 9. Ricky Dahlberg, Phil Fill.

* – Partial list for full list please go to www.racemrann.com.

• Saturday Class Champions: