April 19, 2007

Welcome to Quick Fill.

“We’ll turn it around today. We started the year with this stupid little injury that went on and on. The last race, I was fine, and I had that race in the bag, I know I did. I wasn’t even pushing too hard, but I was able to catch up five minutes on the leaders. I feel like I can beat the other guys, it’s just coming down to luck now. We’ve been riding a lot during the week. I feel a lot stronger and better again. I’m not just going out for the win today, I’m trying to go and dominate it.”

That’s what David Knight told us during our pro rider interviews on Sunday morning. He wasn’t looking to win, he wanted to dominate. I’m not sure what the definition of domination is, but coming from a first turn crash to win the race by over one minute is pretty close. It’s about darned time.

Uh oh. He figured it out.

Now that Knight’s got a win, everything could change. This has been a wide-open series at the top, with four winners in the first four rounds of XC1 pro class racing. And Garrett Edmisten is still in the series points lead. Garrett Edmisten, people! But when you combine the way Knight did it on Sunday with the reputation he already had coming in, and it can get scary. Will the Knighter become the first multi-race winner of the season? Will he go on a streak now that he has it all figured out? These next few rounds are sure going to be interesting!

Chris Borich has it dialed. Scearce photo

Same for the ATV side. Chris Borich didn’t start the season off the way he would have hoped, literally, for he got bad starts in Florida and Georgia, but in the last two rounds he has answered every question and actually left a few unanswered by the rest of pack. Right now, Chris has all the momentum, the speed, and the confidence. He’s on a roll. Then again, we’ve gotten to this position several times over the last three years, and each time good old Mr. Ballance is left standing with the number-one plate at the end of the season. Again, these next few races are going to be very interesting.

 

There are so many talented riders in this series right now that it’s hard to believe we’d even be talking about just one rider at the top of each class. But Knight and Borich have proven themselves to be pretty darned good, and their performances at the Pirelli Big Buck over the weekend only backed that up.

We’ll see. Charlie Mullins has got to got to got to figure out how to win one of these races someday, and same for Glenn Kearney. It’s amazing that two riders so fast and so consistently up front haven’t even accidentally won races at this point—I’m sure having the Juha monster around the last few years didn’t help their chances. I doubt they want to stay in the winless column just because Knight is here.

Charles Mullins? Hawk? No it's Watts!

 

Then you have Shane Watts. I’ve heard Watts leaving KTM rumors for years and years, but really, the idea of seeing him on any other brand of bike just didn’t make sense. Well, make sense of it now, because Shane has finally made the switch. Yamaha is helping him out and Shane is a YZ250 guy now, although it’s still on his own terms and not as a member of the official Am-Pro factory team. Honestly, Watts is just pumped to at least be making some contingency money! As for the race, Wattsy isn’t a mud specialist, just like those other Aussies, and he knees don’t enjoy being dragged through the muck. He was bummed with eighth but it’s better than putting the bike on stand during the race taking a zero—Wattsy is thinking title this year.

Shane is blue.

The good thing is that the contenders made it through the Big Buck race healthy, a big change from the Steele Creek race. Kearney, for example, says he finally has his illness situation rectified, as he basically sat and rested for the three weeks off between races, and the infection he had is now gone. Of course he wasn’t quite super-sharp at the Big Buck since he hadn’t been training or riding leading up to it, but a fifth place in a race with a element of mud doesn’t bother GK.

Yes, the mud. Last week I made the bold claim that the races we expect to be all-time mudders don’t turn out to be, and the ones that are supposed to be good end up bad. And for the most part it worked out again. The ATVs got through with zero rain, and then we had heavy storms Saturday night. The Youth bike race was sloppy, but things started turning around. It was pretty tough at 10 am, but they really weren’t that bad on Sunday afternoon. The mud wasn’t nearly the factor that it was supposed to be, and the mega-threatening clouds we saw overhead later in the day never opened.

They did later, though. Big Buck landowner Henry Turner called me today and said his power was out for a few days after the really big storm hit after we had left. Whew!

Mr. Turner had booked the National Anthem singer, and she had such a good time coming to the races that she sent us this email below:

DEAR GNCC,

I WANT TO LET YOU KNOW THAT I WAS BLOWN AWAY THIS PAST WEEKEND AT BIG BUCK IN UNION SC. IT WAS MY FIRST TIME GOING. I WAS THE NATIONAL ANTHEM SINGER, WHICH WAS SUCH AN HONOR . I WONT EVER MISS THE RACE AGAIN, I'M HOOKED FOR LIFE! GOD BLESS YOU.

AMANDA DRESSENDORFER

That’s pretty cool.

Man, what gives with all of last year’s breakout stars in the ATV ranks? Chris Jenks finally had a good race going, but then he broke a spindle and that ended it for him. Jenks, like many top riders on Hondas, is struggling to develop the newest 450R. See, Honda made big changes to the quad in 2006, but a lot of GNCCers liked the 2005 so much that they never made the switch. But most of the racers aren’t going to ride two-year old machines, so they’re jumping on ‘07s, which are like ‘06s, and suffering from some small problems that are knocking them a smidge off the pace.

One rider who does ride a Honda and doesn’t seem to mind is Women’s contender Stephanie Verkade. Check out her latest column below:

http://www.quadzone.com/Steph/stefanie_11.htm

A few of the Yamaha ATV boys are struggling a bit, too. Last year’s Big Buck winner, Michael Houston, has had a tough year without a top-ten finish yet. And Brandon Ballance continues to struggle with lower back trouble. He has figured out what the problem is, though, and he says it’s tight hamstrings. Brandon was stretching on the starting line on Saturday, and he’s stretching at home now to gain flexibility and try to rid himself of this problem.

But there is one Yamaha guy who is just flying right now. Brandon Sommers is now four out of four with XC2 Pro Am wins. I don’t know if anyone is truly shocked by this, because we’ve known for quite some time what a great talent Brandon is. But still, undefeated is tough in a series like this. So far so good, though (and we’ll have more XC2 stuff here next week).

And another Yamaha rider is undefeated, too, Traci Cecco! The girl has won all four morning race overalls this year. The U2 and 4x4 guys are getting closer and closer, but so far Traci’s got the morning covered.

We’ll cover all of those classes, morning, youth, 4x4 and the rest here next week.

GNCCCast.com has a whole new roundup of interviews up. Go have a listen over there. Al has Fred Andrews, Rodney Smith has Barry Hawk, William Yokley has Brock Parker, and Heather Wilson has cyclist April Lawyer. Unfortunately for Parker, he wadded it up pretty good on the first lap of the race Saturday morning and injured his arm/shoulder pretty good. Man, that guy has no luck!

The kids dug the Easter Egg Hunt. Scearce photo

 

We have a new sponsor for the series and we’re excited about the possibilities. The National Guard is now on board, joining both the series and with William Yokley’s Monster/Kawasaki race program. There should be National Guard reps on hand at each GNCC race for the rest of the season, and we’re hearing about all kinds of cool ideas, like climbing walls and chin up bars in the pits. Should be fun!

Another way to support your country: the American ISDE fund. Fund raisers for the ISDE have begun, including sales of a new t-shirt featuring Jeff Fredette, who has ridden in the ISDE 26 times and is aiming for number 27 this year. The shirts cost $20 and there is $3 shipping through Priority Mail. The web site is http://www.isde4teamusa.com. 100% of the proceeds go to Team USA 2007, who is headed to Chile!

Special thanks to our bud Jeff Adams at Pirelli, who put together the Pirelli Tire Toss on Saturday night. I was there watching the thing, and it became the Pirelli Tire toss bounce and roll. That was clearly the best technique. A few kids got some swag and the winner walked away with a new tire, and everyone had fun.

Also thanks to Joey Halloway for his Easter Egg Hunt, and then a big thanks out to Racedaypix.com, who pulled off the first ever Racedaypix.com GNCC Guitar Hero Challenge. They got it all in just before the rain came, and a good time was had by all. When all the face-melting guitar shredding was done, Ben Hobbs had won, with Bones MacDonald second. Well done, boys.

Congrats to our man Santo DeRisi, who has welcomed a new baby boy into the world. The GNCC family has just gained a member!

Got this note regarding Logan Chilman, who races the bike 200 A class:

Logan broke his right femur at the South Carolina race.  He knew it hurt after a third lap incident with a root and a rut.  He completed the race, only losing two positions on the last lap due to the pain and having to sit down on the bike.

He will be out for a bit but is already stir crazy!

He is in an immobilizer with a GNCC sticker on the Velcro.  He can't wait to get back to racing. He actually held on to 3rd for two laps while riding hurt!  He, of course, blamed Mom....you always taught me not to give up!

-- Logan's mom

Get well soon, man.

Vet A racer Kevin Korn sent us these pics of his '07 ride.

Lots of awards were handed out at the Big Buck. Let’s list ‘em:

ATV XC1 ITP Holeshot Award Winner: Chris Jenks #4
ATV XC2 Atvriders.com Holeshot Award Winner: Jeff Maloney #622
Bike XC1 Racer X Holeshot Award Winner: Charlie Mullins
Bike XC2 Thumpertalk.com Holeshot Award: Rodney Smith
AXA Advisors Holeshot Award winner: Shawn Remmington #979 Vet C 30+

When I first saw that Shawn Remmington got the AMA Advisors award for Vet C, I got confused because I know Shawn Remington is actually a Vet A rider. Turns out we have two Shawn Remmington’s in the series, both ride Yamaha’s, both in the Vet classes. The one with two m’s in his last name races C and the one with one m races A. There ya’ go. And for Shawn with one m, again, I apologize for standing in front of the results LED screen when you were coming through in Florida.

More awards: EFM No-Stall Clutch Award: EFM will award 40% off certificates for their No-Stall clutches to the fourth-place and and middle of the pack finishers of two classes each weekend. One morning bike class, one afternoon. Here are your Big Buck winners:

4-stroke Lites C Tyler Smithberger / Zak Jones
4-stroke Lites B Andrew Suter / Craig Reese

Even more awards: Bart Hayes and the good folks at PowerSports GrafX hooked up the 174 th overall finishers in the morning and afternoon races with new pre-printed numbers and backgrounds. Those riders were:

174 th PM Todd Mount Senior B
174 th AM Jeff Hill Super Senior A

Those guys get free stuff. All they need to do is contact info@ridepg.com or call 800-903-6764.

Bart picked the 174 th spot in honor of GNCC founding father, Dave Coombs, who always ran the 174. We hope Big Dave is proud of what we’ve been doing here.

Now it’s on to the big section of team/rider reports. We’re going to do something different from here on out and post these in a separate section called Team Reports. We’ll post them on Thursday as well. So to go see them, click here. It’s great reading.

Otherwise, whew, another big Quick Fill. Enjoy your weekend off, people.

Score another one for the old guy. Awesome job, Tim.