Quick Fill #48: This Week in GNCC

Welcome to Quick Fill. It's time for the banquet.

This is a special time of year, no matter what time it actually takes place. Sometimes the banquets take place in January. Sometimes it's Thanksgiving weekend. A lot of old-schoolers will remember going to Uniontown, PA for the banquet back when Big Dave was still with us. This year we're back at Lakeview, and no longer on a holiday weekend. That certainly made my family happy, because I haven't been able to go anywhere for Thanksgiving for the last few years until now.

We'll also get our live GNCC announcer Rodney Tomblin to come this year, he's always attending the Mini Olympics amateur motocross race on Thanksgiving weekend. I get some relief help up there as a host. That's a Thanksgiving level thanks from me!

The banquet history is filled with great memories, and we hope to make more this weekend. Every year it seems like something big happens. Last year we had a hilarious moment when Steward Baylor and David Knight attempted to interview each other and couldn't understand each other's accents. Another time Juha Salminen broke down on stage, emotional over leaving the GNCC Series behind. And usually sometime after the show ends, when everyone is letting their hair down, even crazier stuff happens. But we won't write about that here.

Oh and unfortunately, William Yokley will not be attending the banquet this year. There goes half the fun.

We've got a few surprises planned for this year's show, including some information and new ideas for 2010. And also, our GNCC Statistical Staff (consisting of just one person, Carrie Coombs), has spent the last few weeks digging though boxes of old GNCC results. What she has created is the first-ever historical GNCC document, with the list of every winner of every bike and ATV GNCC ever-all the way back to 1975. This weekend, we'll reveal who the all-time winningest GNCC Racer of all is. That's pretty big.

A few other things to note. First, we have re-upped with Versus for our GNCC TV package in 2010. Same format as last year with 30-minute bike and ATV shows each week, but we have a better time slot-Sunday at 3:00 p.m. and Tuesday at 5:00 p.m. Shows start in April. This will mark the tenth season of GNCC on TV. One heck of an accomplishment.

Also, we'll be introducing some new faces to the series over the next year to make this series even stronger. A year ago our sister company, MX Sports, hired Jeff Canfield as Race Director for the Lucas Oil AMA Pro Motocross Championship. He also worked along with AMA Pro Series Manager Harv Whipple in the ATV MX Championship. This year, Canfield will also help out on the GNCC side, taking the role of GNCC Technical Director. Jeff will become the go-to guy for technical rule questions, from production rules in the ATV classes, to displacement limits, to what's legal in the Limited classes. Jeff has been around racing his whole life. This is the same guy who is around when they're checking James Stewart's frame at a supercross race, and now he'll be serving you, too.

Jeff will be at our riders' meetings on Saturday and Sunday morning this weekend to take it all in.

We're also bringing on more help with the press coverage for this series, hiring veteran Motorsports journalist Shan Moore to attend the races next year and provide our ATV and bike reports and photos. Shan has been a moto-journalist for nearly 15 years, most recently working for Cycle News covering just about everything: enduros, hare scrambles, motocross, supercross and even road racing. He also runs his own newspaper on observed trials. I've been lucky enough to work with Jeff and Shan for the last few seasons in motocross and supercross, they're true professionals and will handle their roles well. And the rest of the familiar faces you've gotten to know recently are sticking around. Jason "Digitaloffroad.com" Hooper will continue as TV producer. And Rachel Fluharty will continue as our in-house PR gal.

As for me, my role keeps getting more and more diverse. I started here in 2001 with one job-get local newspapers to cover GNCCs. Eventually I took over the race reports on the website (thanks to my mentor, Mike Nichols), then I became the series' photographer, too. Then I took over the whole website and also answered all of the phone calls and emails. Then I started announcing at the races and eventually became the TV host, too. Then came announcing gigs in supercross and motocross, and this summer I got the job hosting the AMA Motocross Series on Speed and NBC. Covering those other series has kept me away from a lot of the GNCCs lately, and it's not fair to you folks. By bringing in Shan to team up with Rachel, I think all of our press needs will be filled, and I don't have to try to patch it together. And with Canfield, all of the hard questions will be answered by someone who understands the trade well. Meanwhile, I'll be covering more stuff for that little magazine we run here, Racer X Illustrated. I'll still be coming to some GNCCs when I can, for example, I'll be right there as usual this weekend at the banquet and next year when we get started in Florida. But this tour deserves full time uncompromised coverage, and we'll have that in '2010.

Okay, let's turn this over to our GNCC roving reporters. First, Rodney Tomblin.

It sure is good to be home again after a mostly sunny week in Florida at the Mini O's at Gatorback Cycle Park. One of the highlights for me other than great racing was the familiar faces of a few the stars of the GNCC Racing Nation that made their way down for a little off season competition. GNCC youth rider Aaron Plessinger was involved in some of the best battles of the week in the Super Mini and 85cc 12-13 classes. Cody Gragg was tearing things up in the Schoolboy classes and Charlie Mullins was there for Motocross and rode the Pro Am and Four Stroke classes. Looks like Plessinger and Gragg will be racing for the Rock River Powersports Yamaha team next year. I spoke with Mike Duclos, the main man at Rock River and he told me that they had just bought two new rigs and that Rock River was starting a Supercross team and a GNCC team. Not sure what level they are going right now, but he did say they had signed Aaron Plessinger and Cody Gragg. He said they were looking at maybe riders for the XC1 and XC2 classes and would hopefully have more to say in the near future. You may remember Rock River Powersports was at the Klotz Ironman GNCC offering trackside support. I sure hope this works out for them all.

As for Hot Rod, he actually qualified fifth in one of the stacked classes and then was DQ'd. Come to find out, he unknowingly lined up with the wrong qualifier! But it was all for fun and he still qualified in the end. He told me he lost a lot of time because he didn't know how to scrub, but felt fast as otherwise. The bummer for Charlie was that he still had not secured a deal for next season. It kind of makes me wonder how rocky things may get for Charlie. Will he have a blue year? Maybe we will know more soon as the banquet is coming up this weekend (and I have the honor of being able to attend for the first time ever!)
A couple of weeks ago I mentioned I would be taking some time to reflect upon some of the people that caught my eye this past season. This week I will talk about someone that impressed me most after I stopped and looked back over the season and realized just what he had accomplished. He had kind of slid under the radar for some reason, but at the same time had the best season of his professional career. The person I am talking about is the new ATV GNCC runner up, national #2, Taylor Kiser.

I can't for the life of me figure why I would let such an accomplishment go so unnoticed. I guess it is like Taylor told me: second place is first loser! But I don't really think it is that. I think it is because it was overshadowed by the fact that we were looking at the birth of a new GNCC ATV champion with Chris Borich and his phenomenal feat this year. What is amazing is that both Taylor and Chris went into the season with the same goal. Beat Bill Ballance! And remarkably they both did. But Taylor came up short on the beating Bill "and" winning the championship part.

In 2008, Taylor rode for KTM. I remember at the start of the season talking to Taylor and thinking, "What are you thinking walking away from a factory supported team?" I guess he was thinking he wanted to do his own thing. Obviously it worked out well for him. He opened the season with a win in his home state of Florida on a '08 Yamaha that he rode all season. It was the model he told me he knew and was comfortable with. The big challenges for him next were to podium and win all the races he could. While most everyone else was struggling at the beginning of the season with the new '09 model Yamaha, Taylor was clicking off some spectacular races. He was there every race. Then the race at the Titan was a near disaster. Taylor won the muddy slugfest but was docked a couple positions for going a little off course. I know this bothered Taylor and messed with his head a little bit. Like he said, it was an honest mistake and it has happened to some to the best racers on the planet. He also told me he hopes it is something that never happens again. Thing is, I never once doubted that it wasn't a mistake on his part, even after watching the video. I am sure this was frustrating, but he soldiered on and in the end he did beat the Ballance in the final standings.

Taylor and Bill have become really good friends over the past few years and right now they are training together for next season. Taylor will not only be trying to beat Bill and Chris in the championship next season, he will be riding on the Ballance Race team that Bill hand chose to work with next year. That says something when one of your main competitors becomes a mentor. I guess Bill must see some potential in Taylor because as they say, keep your friends close, but keep your enemies even closer. Does this mean Bill sees something in Taylor? I mean think about it. Bill never asked Chris Borich to be on his team!

Hope to see you at the banquet and until next time, God Bless Your Heart and All Your Vital Organs.

Thanks, Rodney. Let's turn this over to Jason "Japan" Hooper.

It's been over a week since we returned from Japan and my internal clock is still hanging out somewhere over Alaska or something. It's crazy what 6 days in a country that's 14 hours ahead of where you live can do to your sleep habits! As I'm sure many of you have already checked out my and Tanner Coombs' blogs I won't go into too crazy detail of all of the events that took place at this years Japanese Cross Country Finale. If you haven't read either, definitely check them out. Tanner definitely brings a unique insight to everything and I'm sure you'll enjoy his stories.

Hooper's Day 1 Blog: http://www.digitaloffroad.com/2009/11/20/japan-blog-day-1/
Hooper's Day 2 Blog: http://www.digitaloffroad.com/2009/11/21/japan-blog-day-2/
Hooper's Day 3 Blog: http://www.digitaloffroad.com/2009/11/23/japan-blog-day-3-race-day/
Krista Shaw's Race Photo Gallery: http://www.digitaloffroad.com/2009/11/22/jncc-race-photo-gallery/

Tanner's Day 1 Blog: http://www.gnccracing.com/articles/1810_tanner-coombs-jncc-update-day-1
Tanner's Day 2 Update: http://www.gnccracing.com/articles/1812_tanner-coombs-jncc-update-day-2

Tanner's JNCC Race Report http://www.gnccracing.com/articles/1826_tanner-coombs-jncc-race-report

Despite all the time cooped up in an airplane and a completely jacked sleep schedule, I couldn't wait to get back to Japan again this year. The Japanese people in general are incredibly nice. JNCC President, Masami Hoshino treated every single American that went on the trip like absolute royalty-and we traveled with a damn big group this year! It's also really cool to see how insanely into off-road racing they are. Josh Strang, Kailub Russell, and Randy Hawkins are rock stars in Japan-they were treated in a way you'd think Ricky Carmichael or James Stewart would be. I think we, as a GNCC family, take for granted how lucky we are to have some of the best racers in the world compete in our series 13 times a year. After the races, the GNCC guys signed autographs and took photos for hours, it was just really cool to see how excited people were about guys we walk by in the pits without thinking twice about.

The tracks in Japan are always much, much shorter than what we are used to. This year's track at the now infamous Cheese Nuts Park was pretty wide open and only about 8 miles long at the most. There were a few pretty steep up hills that provided a lot of excitement as less-skilled riders came tumbling down every lap. Kailub and Josh were in a league of their own, pulling out to over a minute lead before the first lap was halfway complete. The fans were loving watching the two GNCC stars battle, as they changed leads seemingly every few turns. Unfortunately Strang was forced to pit and replace his front brake line losing a lot of time to Kailub. You could tell near the end of the race that Strang had put it into cruise control. But on the last lap Kailub's chain derailed, requiring a very long pit stop of his own! Hollywood was able to get KR going again with time to spare, but had Strang not had his own extended pit stop things could've ended differently. I think maybe the most impressive thing of the race was Randy Hawkins finishing 4th overall starting from the second row. It was the first time he had ridden since the Sumter Enduro back in January!

Traveling abroad always brings up interesting scenarios, especially when you're traveling with as large and diverse a crew as we were. Our first full day there, we ate lunch at a Japanese sushi restaurant that had food circling all of the tables on an automatic carousel. Somehow it was lost in translation to Tanner Coombs and Jeff and Trevor Russell that we were not at a buffet. The two teenage boys had stacks of plates over two feet high (seriously!) when we were done eating. I broke the news to them that it was a pay-per-plate deal, and you should've seen the shocked looks on their faces! Masami picked up the tab, and had a pretty good laugh at the amount of food the boys were able to put away.

I could go on all day about the trip as I'm just now scratching the surface. If you're at the banquet and want to talk more, come find me, I've got plenty of stories. I'll try and share some more in next week's Quick Fill as well. Oh, and if you run into Hollywood or Jeff Russell, be sure to ask them about the cross dressing flagger we named Jar Jar (think Jar Jar Binks from Star Wars).

Thanks, Hoops. Now on to Rachel "Christmas Music for the Next Month!" Fluharty.

In case you guys didn't notice Tuesday Toolbox was up a bit late this week!  I ended up posting it in the wee hours of the morning on Wednesday but I think it was well worth it! Early on Tuesday, I had my plan set to interview Bryan Cook. Good luck seems to come in pairs for Cook, the last time I talked to him for Toolbox, he had just won Steele Creek, the same day he found out Bonnie was pregnant! Now, not only did Cook just get signed to FRE KTM but his wife Bonnie just gave birth on November 20th. Here's a letter Weege got from Bryan just a few days ago.

Hey Jason,
This is Bryan Cook - just wanted to let you know that we have had our baby. She came a little early, but she is very healthy.

Aimee Lynn Cook was born on November 20th at 8:11 am - she weighed 6 pounds 12 ounces and was 19 and a half inches long.
Bonnie had a few complications after delivery and ended up back in the hospital two days after being discharged the first time, but Bonnie and Aimee are both home now and doing great!

Hope to see everyone soon at the banquet!

~Bryan

Bryan was pretty busy that day, and unfortunately called the minute I'd left the office. I'm pretty stoked to interview him next week and already have my list of questions ready. If you have anything you'd want to know from Bryan, send it my way at RachelF@gnccracing.com.

Since we didn't get Cook on the phone, we figured our best choice had to be Theresa Ortolani, the brain behind Endurance, the new off-road racing book which launches tonight in New York City.

Endurance covers Shock Doctor KTM's Nate Kanney's rise from privateer to factory rider over three years through stunning photographs and interviews. Ortolani followed Kanney around for three years and said she pulled tons of all-nighters working on the book. In fact, it's been her full-time job the past year.

When I talked to Theresa it was late on Tuesday night, the only time she was available since she was rushing around getting things ready for the book launch. Theresa said she had barely slept this week but still took some time out to give us a lot of information about what went into making Endurance, which she started working on while she worked full-time for editorial and commercial clients.

I love this quote from Theresa in the interview. I think she totally captured the essence of GNCC racing.

"In the acknowledgement section of the book, I said Nate "taught me the meaning of endurance." I pulled so many all nighters along the way, and made this with zero sponsorship, yet I received a lot of encouragement and had friends pulling me out of ditches when I was stuck, so I kind of feel like my experience making the book was a metaphor for what these guys are doing.... just pushing until you have nothing left and relying on your friends to help you out of rough spots."

Check out the interview here. http://www.gnccracing.com/articles/1825_tuesday-toolboxtheresa-ortolani

Learn more about Endurance or buy the book: http://www.theresaortolani.com

Want to go to the book launch? http://theresaortolani.com/launchevent/index.html

Or just say hi to Theresa and check out the book on Saturday night at the banquet. She'll be there.

Also check out IMstunts.com. Ortolani's husband is a stuntman and it's worth the visit to the web site just to see the picture of him fire!

On a final note, are you coming to the GNCC Awards Banquet? Our friends at Snowshoe Mountain have set-up a really cool winter get-away, but you have to earn it. We'll have the Shaun White Snowboarding video game set up in the Activity room that is adjacent to the GNCC banquet at Lakeview. If you are the high point getter on Friday or Saturday night, you'll win a weekend getaway for two to Snowshoe Resort. The package includes lodging and lift tickets.

Thanks, Rachel. That's a pretty cool deal that Snowshoe set up. Winter's coming, check them out at snowshoemtn.com and tell them GNCC Racing sent you. The resort opens for skiing this weekend and will really start packing them in as the snow starts falling.

Our buddies at Lojak's Yamaha have a deal going:

LOJAKS YAMAHA

"Christmas Sale"

Get your Stocking stuffers here!!!

Huge discounts, best prices ever!

"Everything must go"

Example

(all in stock Yamaha apparel buy 1 get 1 of equal value free.)

Friday Dec. 18th

5pm.-?

Special Prices on all ATV,UTV and Motorcycles

Lojakcycle.com

724-226-3727

That's it for this week. We'll have big coverage from the banquets one week from now. Until then, enjoy your drive to Morgantown and we'll see you Friday and Saturday night!