Tuesday Toolbox: JG Off Road Racing

JT and Gretchen Bennett, team managers of GEICO/JG Racing Monster Energy Kawasaki, had their first date years ago at the first ever Ironman GNCC. Now, in 2009, the husband and wife team have won their first GNCC championship at the same race with New Zealander Paul Whibley. The Bennett's share their racing history and what it took for them to get from a Nissan '86 setup to a championship win and a baby on the way.

GNCCRacing.com: How the heck do JT and Gretchen Bennett end up winning the GNCC title?  How does this happen?

JT: I don't have anything good to say! It hasn't all sunk in yet. We were actually supposed to be out in Denver for the Endurocross this weekend and I was getting everything ready to go out there and I couldn't sleep for two days.

Oh really? You were that nervous about this?
JT: Well, I knew something was wrong. I knew something just wasn't right. We were going to Denver and Paul has a chance to win the championship. At four in the morning it finally came to me one night and I said, "Gretchen and I have been coming to this race for 17 years."

At this race or at GNCCs?
JT: Our very first date was this race. The first Ironman ever was our first date.

Wow! Why would she be dumb enough to agree to that? That's a long way. I know how far Pittsburgh is from here!

JT: We had to smooth it over with her parents. She said she was going to go visit a girlfriend in Ohio.

And you were going racing? We were going racing!

Why did you do it?
G:I don't know.

How long had you known each other at that point?
JT: Maybe a month?

So you said let's take a 450 mile road trip?
G: Why not?
JT: I told her I was the best rider in the country and she couldn't resist.

So did you prove it that day?
JT: I think I ha

d a blister on one of my hands.

Oh well what are you going to do? (laughs)
JT: So yeah, that's how this all came about this weekend. I said there's not a chance we're missing this after 17 years, more than half my life coming to these. I wanted to be here all weekend. Everyone was asking why I didn't run the morning class. Just being here and being part of the deal with Paul was good enough. I didn't have to be out there today.

Can you just go through your background of you guys racing? I remember you'd be gone for a year and you'd be back and you'd be gone again. Just explain your days as a racer and what it took to get here.
JT: There's so much history back then. Back in the early 90's when I started coming with my brother. My brother started maybe in 1990 and we came in a three rail trailer on a two door Cutlass Calais. A three-bike trailer, with three of us and all our gear and a two-door car.

What did you guys come here in?
JT: My brother finally got out of it. So we had to start doing it ourselves. So I bought an  '86 Nissan pickup. And I had to buy a case of oil for every race we went out because I would go through a quart of oil for every tank of gas. Finally after about a year we were getting pretty serious at that time and we were driving through West Virginia at 4 a.m. and I have a 20 year old girl, and I was only 22 at the time and I was thinking I couldn't have the truck breaking down on me. Her parents would never talk to me again! So we upgraded to a brand new pickup truck in 2000. We did that for years. And then we bought the house in 2003.

That is usually what makes us lose more racers, building houses is how we lose racers. So we lost you.
JT: We were gone for about a year. When I first got all the bills I said I would never ride a motorcycle again. Until I figured it out, and it took me about nine months to figure out the bills and then we had a little more money to go racing so here we go again!
G: And then we got married and then we were gone again!
JT: We took another six months off after the wedding because we just didn't have it. We did it on our own, our parents helped us out but we both had jobs and we wanted to do it on our own. So it took us a little longer. We were going to start a family a couple years ago and Mark Weiland showed up at our new house, he used to race with us in the 90s, but he showed up at the door of our new house after almost ten years of not seeing each other. And he said he had a couple opportunities and GEICO was one of them. So he came in and we had a couple beers in the kitchen and said "Let's see what GEICO has to offer."  And he had a connection there with Big Rick Hoffman who was the GEICO/Harley Spokesman so he was able to put our resume to the top of the stack. As soon as we got home from the Six Days in 2006 they called us down to D.C. and said "We believe in you. Here you go. Make it happen."

And just to explain to everyone, you didn't even have Paul Whibley level guys at that point. You were basically building a team and they gave you the money assuming you'd get the job done.
JT: Exactly. At the time I was still riding full time and training at it and they put all their confidence in me to be the premiere rider. What happened was running a team, we had a pickup and now we have an RV and now we have a trailer. It was just way too overwhelming and it put me out of the racing a bit. And the first year we tried to keep it a tight knit group and brought in a lot of friends to help with the program that were some A riders, some B riders just to keep our feet wet. It was a good team but it wasn't a top caliber team and that's where we wanted to go. The second year we had it we brought on Josh McLevy who was semi-retired at that point and that kind of pulled him back in. Josh I think had enough. He had done it as long as I had and I think he wanted to go home and make some money. So that kind of took his focus away. This year, the way the economy and industry has been, come December my phone started ringing off the hook with these guys. And Paul Whibley from New Zealand didn't have a ride in the middle of December. He finished number two in the GNCC series, and he didn't have a ride! And I wasn't sure if we were ready. It was our third year doing it and I knew it was going to be a lot of work. We all sat down and said well, if we don't try it, we'll never know. Jimmy and Scotty didn't come on until January. They came over on New Year's Eve and I got that deal set up.

Did they stay until midnight?
JT: I tried to keep them to stay to midnight but they had plans themselves. Now, we are such a tight-knit group. Those three have been absolutely phenomenal. We didn't have any turmoil or struggles. We knew what we had to do. It took a lot of conversations with GEICO saying if we are running this team, I'm not going to be the premiere rider anymore. And then they asked was "Are you ok with that? Are you okay hiring someone faster than you?" And I said absolutely. We have a chance to put the best team together, let's make it happen.

It was cool this year, Whibley had some problems in Pennsylvania and all of your experience trying to fix stuff came back into play to try and win this thing.
JT: Seventeen years of doing this, and you can see we have the trailer set up really well now. If this was our first year doing it we wouldn't be nearly prepared. You're never prepared for everything. Whatever comes at us at the races you don't panic you just get it done. You're never out until the checkers fly.

And the teams you had to beat. Suzuki has been doing this as long as you have but as a top level team. They started in the early 90s. Halfway through were you thinking, "I can't believe this!"
JT: It didn't seem real because we just put our heads down and worked on the team getting things right. When we finally realized we were halfway through. It was our buddies back home that were reminding us  "You know what you have?" It didn't hit us until halfway through the season that we have an honest to God chance here.

And now Gretchen is pregnant? You guys are getting the job done all over the place! So you're due next year?
G: March 7^th. Right in time for race season! I already have this plan. I have this little baby carrier already ordered so JT can strap the baby right on him and keep going.

He can pit board and do whatever needs done!
JT: You see people all the time with a baby so I can do it!

So it's been about the best year you guys could ever if you think about it that way.
JT: That conversation came up at St. Clairsville when Paul had a chance to wrap it up there. If he wraps up the championship, what's next? How do we make it better next year? This winter we're obviously going to come up with a plan and we're going to make it better. So that's our plan now.