By Kevin Mills,Staff Writer

MINOT – Gabrielle Mathieu certainly has a level of fearlessness to her.

So when she took her first ride over the expanded portion of Hemond’s Motocross Park on Sunday, she barely blinked.

Keep in mind that Mathieu broke her leg on the older, easier, portion of the track a few years ago.

That was past history to the Lisbon native, though. She launched herself down the side of the hill Sunday and revved it for all she had on the jumps and wide-open terrain of the new extension.

“It’s very intimidating,” said Mathieu. “Sometimes you don’t even know if you’re going to make it through the corner. You just lock up your brakes and do what you can.”

Mathieu, a former Lisbon three-sport athlete who turns 19 Monday, crashed a few years ago when she launched over a triple jump and collided with a pair of fallen riders. The crash broke her leg and left her soccer team without its goaltender.

That mishap was the furthest thing from her mind Sunday as she and riders from all over New England got to test drive the new and improved largest track in Maine.

“I think it’s really fun,” said Mathieu. “It’s high speed. You need a lot of power going into the jumps. It’s a big difference from the other track, which is more of a supercross type. This is more like outdoor.”

A 1.2 mile portion of the new track was opened Sunday. It features a sidehill that provides 15 stories of elevation. The jumps are greater and the opportunity for speed is increased by a couple of straightaways.

“I like the speed of it,” said Mathieu. “Usually you don’t get to go that fast on a motocross track.”

The expanded portion of the track in Minot was supposed to get its debut Saturday but because of rain, riders were limited to the existing part of the track.

“It dried out,” said Serae Hemond, who co-owns the track with her husband, Donald. Their son, Mike, was busy prepping and grooming the expanded track that he helped build.

“That was the main reason we didn’t open it yesterday. Even if we’d been using this track, we wouldn’t have used it yesterday because I think it’s going to be way too dangerous to race with that much mud on it. This other track, we’ve raced it in the mud a zillion times. and we can just go out and push some of the mud off of it.”

The wait may have been worth it. The conditions were much improved and made for a proper coming out party.

“I think it was good,” said North Hampton, N.H. native Paul Lamb, who won his 250 Pro Class race. “It has its kinks in it, but honestly I think it’s going to be really good. We need some fast tracks up this way because nobody has any fast tracks. If Mike (Hemond) does what he usually does, that track is going to be awesome.”

The 22-year old Lamb, one of the New England Sports Committee riders racing this weekend, said the improvements makes this track one of the best around.

“I like it, it’s fun,” he said. “Southwick (in Southwick, Mass.) is awesome. It kind of reminds me of Jolly Rogers (in East Lempster, N.H.). You’ve got this in here where it’s tight. So you go from wide open to tight.”

This weekend’s action was the next-to-last weekend for NESC riders in their Spring Series. The final races are at Jolly Rogers next weekend.

Hemond was anxious to hear feedback from riders about the new track. The idea for the expansion was hatched in 2004 and been a work in progress ever since.

“We wanted to make it challenging but doable,” said Hemond. “We wanted to have the best track – in New England anyway.”

The track was certainly good for Wilton’s Al Elliott. He finished second in his first outing in the morning and followed that up with a first in the 125 Amateur race in the afternoon.

“That track is really nice,” he said “It’s nice and smooth. The big straightaways make it really easy to ride.”

The 17 year old says he likes this track better than any he typically races, and the results show it. After getting accustomed to the new course, he produced his afternoon win on his second ride.

“That helped out a lot, finding the ruts and stuff and the corner, it just helped out,” said Elliott.

Hemond says the track still has some manicuring work to be done to spruce up the entire facility. So much work has gone into getting the new portion ready to race, that other tasks need doing. The hope is that Sunday’s reviews help bring more riders to the track in the future.

“Next year we hope to have more races,” said Hemond. “We’d like to get a qualifier up here. We’d like to get a National too. I don’t know if that would ever happen because it’s so far North, but it’s a national caliber track. This is what the big guys are looking for.”