Welcome to Quick Fill, and welcome back!
It's been an exhausting trip through Loretta Lynn's for our crew, and many are still not back yet. ATV Dirt Days, the final round of the ITP Tires/Moose Racing ATV Motocross Championship presented by Parts Unlimited, is taking place at the Ranch this weekend. Stay up to date and follow live results on www.atvmotocross.com, listen to our own Rodney Tomblin and Dave "Racedaypix" Smith host Track Smack on Saturday night at 7 p.m. EST, or just go on down and race yourself. Motocross at Loretta's is special and you should experience it for yourself.
But before we get deep into this week's Quick Fill, we must once again send our condolences out to the Penland family, who lost their son, Hoyt, two weeks ago. We posted updates as we learned them right after the tragedy. Mike, a 12-time GNCC Utility ATV Champion, was obviously very hurt, and we know the GNCC family sent him all the support they could. This week, I called Mike myself for an update. Unfortunately, he doesn't know too much more right now. Everyone is pretty sure Hoyt passed due to complications dating back to his leg injury in Baja in 2007, but Mike said it could be six months before all the test results come back and everyone finds out what happened.
"He had lots of metal in his leg, bolts and wires, lots of stuff," said Mike. "And they were trying to stretch the leg, so he was on pain killers for that. We don't really know, but it probably has something to do with the leg. The poor boy had been laid up for 20 months with it."
What will Mike do now? He will continue racing. He has put together a three-man team to compete in the second-annual Heartland Challenge 10-Hour ATV Race, which runs August 20-22nd. Should be a good one, and I'm sure Mike's not the only top GNCC racer scheduled to compete in the event. I'll try to get more info from ATVRiders.com's Harlen Foley, who puts the event together. Or just go to http://www.heartlandchallenge.com/
Photo By: Matt Ware
Bill Ballance is racing in France!
"I've been up to a little this and that," said Kiser. "I took a few weeks off and went to the Keys for vacation. I'm back up at Bill's (Ballance) now and riding every day. I'm getting ready to go to France with Bill and Brandon Sommers. We're going to the 12 hours of Pont De Vaux. It's a 12-hour endurance race over there. It's something to keep us busy. I went last year with KTM and that was a lot of fun. We decided we'd do that this year. We leave for that Monday. Other than that, I'm just trying to stay out of trouble. For the rest of the summer, I'm just riding and trying to stay up at Bill's for a while. We all push each other to ride and stay in shape."
As Taylor mentioned, he rode the event with KTM last year, and don't worry, Team KTM will return to the event this year to try to improve on their second overall finish. Here's a letter:
Photo By: Brad Cheyney
KTM preps for France.
Brad Cheyney
Bairs Polaris-Victory
Sounds like a real showdown is brewing next week over in France. Now if we could only get some Suzuki dudes over there to team up with Chris Borich!
On the bike side, a variety of other off-road series are rolling through the summer, including the GEICO EnduroCross Series, the OMA Series and the WORCS. WORCS has drawn plenty of GNCC riders, including former WORCS Champion Kurt Caselli, who made a brief return to the tour. The series ran back-to-back events in Olympia, Washington, and Charlie Mullins took impressive 4th and 5th place finishes. And Caselli landed on the podium at the first event. And even our man Glenn Kearney made the trek, taking a seventh in one round but DNFing another.
Photo By: Matt Ware
"Hot Rod" Mullins has had some success racing out West.
The cool thing is that Andrew plans on making a return to GNCCs now that Loretta's is over. Andrew is out of the XC2 title hunt after missing a few races, so he's thinking of racing the XC1 class on his 250F and just shoot for a higher overall finish. He does own a 450, but it has motocross suspension, which probably won't work too well in the woods. Anyway, it will be good to see him back.
Now let's check in with Barry Hawk. Rachel "Sweet Freedom" Fluharty spoke with the eight-time GNCC Champion:
"After Snowshoe I took a break and went to the beach with my family," said Hawk. "Other than that, it's same thing for the past 20 years. Last week I had some fun, and got a bunch of riding in. I trained on the road bike. Then we did the AWRCS race in Smithton and I got first on Sunday. I had fun. It was a little bit hot but I like it hot. It's the same old thing as always: Working on bikes, riding and training. We had a couple other guys riding with us, Ryan Belue, AJ Stewart, and Sean Remington. I want to see if those guys want to do that again. We're shooting for a mini-camp part two. Other than that, that's about it. It seems like I always do better after the second part of the year. Hopefully history will repeat itself. At Snowshoe I was feeling good and then had my crash there. Hopefully I've gotten all the bad luck out of the way."
I spoke with Yamaha Racing Manager Donnie Luce at Loretta's, and he said Yamaha has another year left on their deal with Randy Hawkins' Am-Pro FMF Yamaha squad, so you will see a Yamaha rig at the races next year for sure. In this economy, such certainly is nice to know. I also spoke with Antti Kallonen of KTM, and he said that team will still have a big GNCC effort next year, too (good news, since KTM's 2010 plans on the motocross side are all over the map). As of now they know for sure that WORCS Women's contender Maria Forsberg is heading to the GNCCs next year, and Antti said he will have the rest of the team's plans set soon.
Photo By: Matt Ware
Kanney hopes to put the 116 machine on the box after the break.
"I usually seem to do better in the last few races so maybe that will happen again," said Nate. Nate is also happy that the KTM team isn't stressing on him. "They know I have the speed, they're not yelling at me after the races if I don't win," said Nate. "I think guys like me and Thad, we have the speed to be right in there, we've just had some bad luck."
Sounds like we're set for an awesome last four races.
Time for some baby news from GNCC 4x4 Limited Champion Michael Swift:
Hello everyone,
We welcomed a new addition to our family today at 10:01am. Millie Ann Swift she weighed 8 pounds and is 21.5 inches long. Both her and mom are doing well!!!
--Michael Swift
Photo By: Swift family
Welcome a new Swift!
Photo By: Swift family
Proud papa with the latest.
Congrats!
And finally here's a post you folks might want to get involved in, as riders are trying to band together to keep public lands open for riding. Click HERE.
That's it. Good to be back with some solid scoops...and we'll be back with more next week!
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