May 3 , 2007

Welcome to Quick Fill. We’re heading north!

After a fun run through the Southern U.S., five GNCCs are in the books and the South, as they say, shall rise again (at Yadkinville, NC on September 29 and 30). But for now, we bid the southern charm adieu, but not without a visit to Loretta’s.

We got lucky again on this one with really nice weather for racing, maybe a little too nice since it got kind of dusty out there. But the last few years of Loretta’s GNCCs have been swamp fests on Saturday, so I’m sure the ATV crowd didn’t mind that much.

We got one of the local papers ( Dixon, TN) to run a story on the race, check it out at this link.

As always the fans down there were pumped, and the weather was so nice that we got to run some of the motocross track again. From what I’ve heard, the best race of the weekend might have been the 10 a.m. ATV race on Saturday, which not only featured Traci Cecco and Angel Atwell battling it out for the win the Women’s class, but then a few minutes later Mike Benson came flying through on his Four-Stroke Tech KFX700 (V-Force, as they were once known) to miss the overall by like three seconds. Three seconds separated the top three! That’s a miracle finish, and it’s probably going to keep up all season long. I can’t believe Cecco has held her winning streak for this long against this kind of competition, but that just shows how experienced and competitive she is.

Traci wins again! ATVRiders.com

 

We had another race to the finish on Sunday in the XC2 Lites class. David Knight won by a big margin again, but Charlie Mullins and Garrett Edmisten were side-by-side through the final corners in a duel for second. And even better, Rodney Smith and Thad DuVall were practically bumping wheels through the finish in the fight for the XC2 Lites win. Exciting stuff.

 

GK airs it out on the LL's moto track. Hooper photo

We’ll see if Knight now has the field covered. Certainly his second-straight come-from-behind ride is a sign that he’s got this thing figured out and wants to put a Juha-sized beat down on the pack. But you never know, David hangs it out and you’re only one mistake away from trouble in this game. I talked to Glenn Kearney today, and Glenn said Knighter was on a mission when he came through the pack, and when he went flying past Glenn, GK thought “There’s no way he can keep that pace up.” And yet, he did and he won.

It’s especially impressive because riders that come over from Europe usually have a tough time with rough, long, hot and humid races in the U.S. After all, World Enduro Championship events give the riders plenty of rest time between special tests, so fitness isn’t as big of an issue. Plus, Knight still goes home to Europe most of the time between races, so it’s not like he’s training in the Carolinas like a lot of the competition. And yet, he didn’t fade a bit. He’s going to be tough.

Be sure to check all of our “team reports” on this page here. You’ll get lots of scoops from your favorite riders and teams on how Loretta’s was won or lost. Shane Watts, for example, thinks he had the stuff to run with Knighter to the finish, until he tagged a tree hard and crashed.

Also, Garrett Edmisten has really proven now that he’s for real this season. After two races off the podium, it as tempting to think we had seen the best that the 21-year-old Floridian had, but lo and behold he was back doing his thing at Loretta’s: slowly, surely, confidently working his way toward the front and making up huge ground. In fact, had Edmisten not chunked all of the knobs off of his rear tire, he probably would have taken second, although third behind Charlie Mullins isn’t bad. Garrett is pumped up right now. On the podium, he said “Everyone doubts me, but I’m trying to prove that you don’t doubt Garrett Edmisten.” Then I talked to him again this week, and he says he’s ready to win a race now, and he’s going to train super hard over the summer break and try to win all five races when we return in September! This is what some confidence will do for a guy.

Fitness helps, too. Edmisten has been exceptionally strong late in these races. Mullins is coming around, too, and he told me that “I basically was riding by myself all day, and then when everyone got tired, I moved up.” Mullins has been training hard, and he’s doing less riding and more fitness work lately. He’s now in the midst of moving from South Carolina back to Ohio now that the winter is over, but in between he’ll run an area qualifier for the Air Nautiques/AMA Nationals at Loretta Lynn’s this weekend at Pleasure Valley in Pennsylvania. Charlie got a thumbs up from Mike Guerra and Yamaha to do it so here we go. Also, rumor has it that FMF Suzuki boys Jimmy Jarrett and Josh Strang are thinking of running Loretta’s, too.

This was Garrett Edmisten's rear tire after the race! Hooper photo

As for the ATV pros, it’s turning into one heck of a battle between Chris Borich and Bill Ballance, maybe the best showdown season yet between the duo. A source close to the Ballance camp told me this week that the best way to sum up Bill’s mind set after taking second at Loretta’s is “rage.” The guy HATES to lose and three in a row must not be sitting well with the guy.

Bill put on a big charge to catch Borich after an uncharacteristic bad start. On the last lap, he got to him, but Borich seems unfazed by such pressure now, and so Bill I’m sure was going to let it all hang out to try to make a pass (we’ve come a long, long way from 2002, when it seemed like every episode of the GNCC TV shows featured “Chris Borich’s crazy last-lap crash of the week”). But the chance never came, as he crashed before he passed. Both of these guys are going for it right now. But what can you say? At the moment Borich has the points lead and the upper hand. It’s going to be fun watching these guys all year.

Matt Smiley on the podium! Scearce photo

But the best part of the race was Matt Smiley taking third. Although it’s only been about two years since we’ve seen Might Matt on the podium, it seems more like 10. And to use the most overused pun in this sport, Smiley was smiling up there. My man Rodney Tomblin (the “other” announcer guy) was pumped to see Matt there, too, as he has battled from way back. Also, Matt pulled over for Ballance on the last lap after Ballance had crashed and was giving it one more run at Borich. Smiley and Borich are East Coast ATV teammates now, but Matt still plays fair. Good stuff.

Hey, if you’re wondering who the other announcer was at Loretta’s (helping with some of the Youth trophy presentations) it was none other than veteran microphone man Tim Cotter. Tim is one of the most well-known MX announcers ever, covering all of the AMA National Motocross Championship races, the AMA Arenacross Series, Loretta Lynn’s, you name it, he’s a player, and it was great to have him down in Tennessee.

Brandon Sommers won XC2 again, as did Rodney Smith, our Tuesday Toolbox subject. As always, we’ll cover more XC2 classes next week.

GNCCcast.com has got some great new stuff up with their weekly Wednesday new shows. William Yokley interviews Mike Penland, Rodney Smith interviews Josh Strang, Heather Wilson covers cyclist Katrina Nash, and Al from GNCC cast talks to Powersports GrafX boss Bart Hayes.

Let’s honor our holeshot winner’s from Loretta’s:

Bike XC1 Racer X Holeshot Award: Jimmy Jarrett
Bike XC2 Thumpertalk.com Holeshot Award: Justin Williamson
ATV XC1 ITP Holeshot Award: Taylor Kiser
ATV XC2 ATVRiders.com Holeshot Award: Don Ockerman

Kiser did a good job holding on to Borich’s pace early in the race before finishing sixth. Once again, ex XC2 Pro Am riders are running strong in their debut seasons in XC1. But the former XC2 Pro Am graduates are struggling, as Chris Jenks and Duane Johnson have got to be the most under par of all the racers out there this season. Obviously, they can do it if they get all the pieces of the puzzle again. Jenks has shown plenty of speed this year, but his results remind me of Makita Suzuki supercross star Ivan Tedesco. Ivan knew he would have to replace Ricky Carmichael this year as Suzuki’s main man, and then he got hurt at the opening round of racing in Toronto. He has come back with a vengeance, and I mean that literally, as Ivan seems to be riding angry and crashing and making mistakes everywhere. Obviously, the guy wants to go to the next level and show everyone he is championship material, but he’s going to have to back it down a bit and start over before he gets there. Riding angry doesn’t always work. We’ve only run five races this year in GNCC, but it seems like the same type of thing from Jenks.

Here’s a sad, gruesome story that has a happy ending:

Classy move by young Aussie Josh Strang. Hooper photo

A huge, huge pat on the back to Keith Jeziorski. In Sunday afternoon’s bike race, we had a rider go down and somehow (brace yourselves for this) cut his eye open, which lead to intense bleeding. XC1 Pro Josh Strang saw this and told GNCC track worker Buren Hamrick about it, and Buren sped over to the scene on his Can-Am Outlander to see what was happening (thanks very much for taking the time to alert us, Josh). The rider was in pain and bleeding, and he could not be carried out on Buren’s machine alone. So Keith sacrificed his own race to help assist the rider, along with Buren, back into the pits where he could get medical attention. At first, it seemed almost certain that the rider would lose his vision in the bad eye, but lo and behold he called Carrie here at the office on Tuesday and he’s going to be okay—if not for Josh, Buren and Keith, he might not have been. That’s the spirit, guys.

Congrats to bike 250B rider Mike Wozny. He’s the first B rider this season to defeat Jordan Ashburn, who has run very strong for the first four races and finished second to Wozny at Loretta’s. There have been some rumblings about Ashburn racing B this year since he’s doing so well, but his KTM/Powersports GrafX Team Manager Bart Hayes has asked the AMA about Jordan’s status well before the season began, and they approved him racing in the class. There is an AMA letter on file regarding the approval, so he’s legal. That said, well done by both Wozny and Ashburn!

Okay, that’s gonna’ do it for Quick Fill, but be sure to read all of the Team Race Reports right here, it’s good stuff. Do you know why Barry Hawk struggled so much in Tennessee? You’ll have to read on…

I’m off to Las Vegas for the Amp’d Mobile Supercross finale. I hear the Knighter himself will be there, so this should be fun. And then supercross is finished, so I’m back on the GNCC beat full time for the rest of the season.

See you at the races.

Hooper was especially pumped on this photo so we're running it.