If you have ever been to a GNCC then you may relate to the transformation that every individual fan/racer has ever gone through. Some have come and gone with a respect but nary a will to ever try it again. Others have come and never left whether it be laying it on the line for a championship, cheering your favorite rider on to his championship or recording and writing about the riders on there way to championships. The one common ground is that everyone finds some way to be involved. From the motocross tracks of Maryland to the woods of an off-road race, Digital Off-Road's Jason Hooper has transformed into one of the GNCC biggest fans ever.
Hey Jason how are things going?
Hey, Rodney! Things are going really well man, just completely wide open right now getting everything squared away so we can head down to Florida this coming Sunday.
Photo By: Digital Off-Road
Hooper and Krista Shaw are both passionate about GNCC.
Well my girlfriend Krista and I were out in California filming with Josh Strang and Josh Weisenfels for a little over a week. It was awesome to go out West and check things out, we got to do some riding at places like Pala and Perris Raceway, you know, those places that we had always read about but never visit, and just got to soak up the awesome California weather and do some filming for my website and a DVD project that I've got in the works. Then the day after we got home, we went down to Randy Hawkins' place in South Carolina and shot the AmPro Yamaha team photos and some video. Now I'm just finishing everything up and packing so we can leave Sunday for Florida. We're shooting the JG Off-road/Geico/Honda team photos on Monday, then shooting with the Fred Andrews Husky Team that week as well.
It sounds like things are going pretty good. So tell me a little about yourself, I mean you were not much of a woods racing fan till you started covering GNCC and then you are as big or bigger fan than me. Where do you come from?
I was born and raised in Maryland, and started racing motocross back in 1993 on 60s. My brother and I both raced and kind of excelled for a while, both of us qualified for and raced at Loretta Lynn's in 1996 and 1997 and both got our butts thoroughly kicked! I started getting kind of burnt out on racing in 1998, and ended up quitting that year and didn't touch a dirt bike again until 2005 when I got hired as a graphic designer at Racer X. That same year I got to go to the Wisp GNCC and race on a 2006 KTM 250XC as part of KTM's press intro and really fell in love with it. I had gotten back into motocross then too and was totally over going to the races and spending the entire day at the track and only getting 4 laps of practice and two 4-lap motos. So I hit a couple more GNCCs in 2005 and then raced the first 9 rounds of 2006 and I haven't missed a round since then!
Photo By: Digital Off-Road
The Hickory friends; Strang, GK, Krystle, and some others. The 828 Crew!
The proximity to the races and the racers definitely had some influence in our decision to move down here, but that wasn't the only reason. We were looking for a change in a lot of ways, weather, business-wise, personally, etc, but it sure is nice being close to all the action. We're really close friends with Glenn Kearney and his fiancée Krystle, Josh Strang, and Charlie and Rachel Mullins so that played a big role in it too. Unfortunately now the Mullins and us are the only ones left, but we've made a ton of friends through the Kearney's that are Hickory locals, we proudly rep the 828 now, and we love it here.
What was the inspiration for the Digital Off-Road website?
I'm sure you remember Ray Gundy--he used to be the man when it came to GNCC photos. Back in 2006 Ray and I talked a lot about partnering up on an off-road-specific site but we never could make it happen, then Ray ended up with a freak injury to his back that made it tough for him to shoot GNCCs, so the idea kind of went to the back burner. Back in 2009 I was really kind of bummed with the lack of press the off-road scene, GNCC in particular was getting. As the economy became worse and worse it seemed like off-roaders were the ones getting cut from win ads and stuff like that so I decided to just go for it and launch my site to try and make a place where we could give these guys the press and recognition they deserve.
Did you expect it to take off like it has?
I really had no idea what would happen. Being a part of the Racer Productions family for so long, I was pretty clued in on the kind of traffic the GNCC site gets so I knew that there was a market out there, but it definitely has done better than I had anticipated. Right now it's a matter of just spreading the word, letting people know that there are places out there to get info on their favorite riders. To be honest, Tuesday Toolbox and Quickfill probably get more traffic than my site, offroadjunkies.com and offroadviking.comcombined so there's still some work to be done.
Photo By: Digital Off-Road
Hoop, Krista, Chandler Welborn and Krystle Muzevic at the Ironman GNCC.
he off-road sites?
I'm not really sure if it does or not, but if so I'd hope it's because of the professional look and feel of my site along with the quality of content that we provide. I learned a lot from my time working for Racer X and I really want my site to be the Racer X of off-road racing so I do a lot to emulate them.
I know you and I had a blast doing the motorcycle re-caps the latter part of the season, is that something we will be doing more of this year?
Yeah man, the Post-Race shows were so much fun last year. I've never really been in front of the camera, but I think that you and I really pulled it off and it's something that the sport needs to grow, so we'll be bringing it back for 2011 as long as you're willing to help me! Fly Racing has actually come on board to help out with the video section of my site and make it possible for those shows to happen, and GoPro has also come on with us and has given me a ton of helmet cams so we're going to have some awesome stuff in the works for 2011.
What about the GNCC Fantasy League at offroadfantasy.com, is it on this year?
Yeah, it's definitely back on. We're running a little bit behind on the programming changes that I wanted to make, but we'll be open for registration on Thursday, and I'll make a mention in QuickFill about the awesome grand prize we have in the works. We've dropped the price down to $10 per entry and you'll be able to play multiple teams for an additional $5. Some awesome companies like Obermeyer Yamaha,RidePG.com, Fly Racing, Scott Sports, Acerbis, Maxxis, and Kenda have kicked in some sick prizes so it's going to be an awesome year.
Photo By: Digital Off-Road
Infamous Josh Strang American Motorcyclist tough guy pose! On a GK Husky.
Do you have anything new planned for this season on digitaloffroad.com?
I'm going to be launching a redesign of the site at the end of this week that will make things a little bit easier to use, and the big addition will be our Race Center sec
tion, a one-stop spot for everything from news, photos, videos, results, hotels, directions, and weather for each of the GNCCs. Other than that we have a couple of new articles in the works, Krista has b
een doing interviews with all of the rider's wives and girlfriends so we have a ton of those in the can. It's going to be a good year for us for sure a
nd I'm just hoping to have as much fresh content on the site each week as possible.
Hoop you are not only a web master but you are also putting together the Racer TV shows again this year, can you tell me about the schedule change and just how big this is for Racer TV and all of its programming?
Yeah, the digitaloffroad.com is just my side project; my main job is the production of the RacerTV shows. For 2011 we've gone to a 52-week schedule that will include 31 GNCC TV shows, ATV Motocross, Loretta Lynn's Amateur motocross as well as Snocross. The idea is that people know that every Sunday afternoon they can flip on Versus and find some awesome racing action and in turn our ratings will grow due to that consistency.
Photo By: Digital Off-Road
Hoop gets into his work..."Playin' The Dirt"
Well the big change is that we're adding 5 shows to this season and we'll be able to feature utility ATV racing, UTVs as well as Women's class and some Youth racing action. I think it's awesome that in this economy we're going out and buying more TV time instead of cutting back and I hope all of the fans out there appreciate that as well and will tune in. The other massive change is that all of the shows will be available online a week after the premiere airing, so if you live somewhere that doesn't get Versus, or out of the United States you'll be able to watch the shows on your computer.
Thanks for taking the time to talk today and I guess I will see you in a little more than a week!
No problem Rodney, thanks for doing the interview! This is my first Tuesday Toolbox and it's a real honor, I kind of thought you had forgotten about lowly old digitaloffroad.com there for a while! See ya down in Florida!
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