RACEGUY 'Rites: July 2011

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National Pride

While this page is intended to be used for editorial material from the mind of yours truly, rules like that were made to be manipulated. Taking that into consideration, I am about to turn the page over to the stream of consciousness rambling about people, places, and things I’ll encounter this week as the Monster Energy Pro National takes over “The Glade”.

There will be no shortage of stories to tell, observations to be made, or pictures to be taken. There will be drama and controversy, success and failure, and stories that are best left untold. We’ll run the gamut of stories that will bring tears to your eyes, whether it’s tears of laughter, or tears of deep emotion.

There will be plenty of interesting things to follow, with the Royal Distributing/Motovan amateur day program on Saturday with amazing awards back to 5^th place and thousands of dollars in gift-card giveaways. Then, along comes Sunday and that day speaks for itself.

This page will continue updating within hours as the weekend develops, so check in often. Those who have signed up as followers of this humble site will get a notification when this page changes.

WEDNESDAY

Wednesday night’s coverage was a washout, literally. A full day with alternating heavy rain and endless drizzle had turned the park into the world’s fastest mudpie.

Pat O’Connor was an early bird and slid the Leading Edge rig into a mucho primo spot in the pits. Schraders were also setting up camp… could swear I saw Maffenbier helping with the roadie work.

Leading Edge leads in the readiness category

These guys were running a close 2nd

Otherwise, there weren’t a lot of guys around. They’re in the area, just found some place better to get out of the rain.

It was because of that rain and the black skies that come with it, that I didn’t bother with pre-race weekend track photos. We’ll try again tomorrow. Meanwhile, here are a few shots I took before I feared for the life of my camera in the relentless rain.

Teddy Maier's bike is a work of art

Obviously it's waterproof art

A bike this nice should have

It's own umbrella girl

A look from the loud side

Lady in waiting

Just a couple of trick bits

Teddy isn't too fond of bent brake rotors

Thursday

All the rain from Wednesday was hardly obvious, by the time the bright sun and steady breeze has worked their magic. Grassy areas held some moisture, and the very lowest sections of the track were saturated, but a good percentage of track surface was the telltale grey that says “I coulda used a few more hours of rain".

The notorious "spectator jump"

It used to point straight at the tower

Somebody's been playing in the orchard

Once the final practice day is over at the track, the prep will rev up to redline. There is a load of new organic (chips) to be added, a few subtle changes that need the final polish, and a couple of MAJOR changes that are nearing their deadline. I won’t give everything away, but you are going to see some big differences come Saturday.

The High Fibre Diet

Aside from track changes, there was one change I wasn’t quite prepared for. You’ll see what I mean in the photos below.

A huge numbers of teams have already settled in to the Greater Moncton area and are cramming a little sightseeing in between travelling and training. Larry Northrup, Earl Doucette, and Dave Hewitson have either cloned themselves, or found a way to be at the track 27 hours out of every 24. Amateur teams are showing up and camping for the duration. This thing is now building momentum with every minute.

The place is looking great. The changes are good. Everybody is smiling. Let’s see what Friday brings. I’ll keep you posted and get you a few pics.

Still picturesque

Too small for a dancefloor

Maybe a hint of things to come?

He was crushing...

I was crushed

A lot of irreplacable memories

In a heap at my feet

My luxurious new crib

Have to see how it all comes together

If you ever wondered why I call it

"The Orchard"

New permanent bleachers

We saved a seat for you

Welcome back - we missed you

Has it really been a whole year?

Friday

I don’t remember ever attending a Friday prior to a National where the atmosphere was as relaxed and easy going as it was today at “The Glade”. The Monster arch was in place, repeater banners were quickly being strung defining the edges of the track. Every piece of earth moving machinery was in motion, all working to achieve the same goal. Everyone appeared focused and enthusiastic. It was just this side of surreal.

What do you mean

It's in the wrong place

The Royal Treatment

Brett, Wendy, Mark, the CMRC anchors were in position already, Larry Northrup and Lee Steeves were scooping and tamping and dragging soil and mulch, while Earl Doucette was covering ground while crossing “T’s” and dotting “I’s”, and getting pretty damn dirty in the process. It was all falling into place like a well oiled machine and, unbelievably, all I saw was cooperation from every one at every level.

Plastic surgery for the

Spectator jump

"I told you we shoulda just planted corn."

Bikes are unloaded and awaiting one final thorough physical before being ridden into battle on Sunday. Pressure washers mist the air everywhere you look, and a great number of the top riders have already dropped by for a look around and a quick analysis of what they’re facing this weekend.

No introduction necessary

Riders will not just be surprised at the Riverglade that awaits them, they will be dumbstruck. We’re not talking simple flow changes as we saw in the spring. Nothing that benign. A couple of the modifications can only be described as radical.

First practice
I know where I'll be looking

When I left the track at somewhere around 6pm Friday, there was still a lot of sculpting to be completed. If it wasn’t this particular group of people, I might be seriously skeptical that everything would be ready for Saturday morning. With these players on the field, nothing is beyond reach.

"I told ya!...
Third gear pinned!"

As for stories and rumours, only one off-the-wall story/rumour/fairy tale floated to the top this pre-race Friday. It has been tweeted and Facebooked that Mitch Cooke will be putting together a ride for this weekend’s stop at Riverglade. I haven’t heard it from Mitch himself, so I’ll just stay cautiously optimistic and see what Sunday morning brings.

I will try to drop in a few words during practice in the morning. If all the stars are in proper alignment, I will be able to have my trusty laptop beside me in my all new penthouse in the sky.

Amped? Stoked?? It’s beyond that. I am mega-stoked. (I just made that up). Hold on tight, because this thing is building toward critical mass. I, for one, will be there through every magic minute.

Good luck to everyone riding Saturday. Have fun and stay safe.

In just a couple of hours, I’ll be rolling out and rolling on bound for “The Glade”.

I can’t wait for sunrise. Here are a couple more miscellaneous photos. Check back in this morning.

Now THAT'S a lean-to!

"OK...ease into it

and DON'T spin the tires."

Saturday

How do I sum up the day without getting all "wordy" and introspective? If asked, could I condense the whole thing into one simple sentence? Hell, I'll do better than that. I can do it in one word. RAIN. Rain drops the size of grapefruit. Relentless rain. Rain so persistent and never-ending, even the ducks had umbrellas. Rain, in all it's dust quenching glory... and then some. Our day was dominated by rain.

Here are a couple of photos to hold you over until I can add a few more words. I'll give you a hint... I just might mention... rain.

Riders meeting

This is the cleanest you'll be all day

It took me a long time to get around to finishing this. By the time the day was done, the stress level had built to the point that any attempt to release it might have resulted in some kind of steam-driven melt-down.

It was instantly apparent that many of today’s motocrossers are completely unaware of the lifetime of memories that are made whenever battles include the elements at their ultimate. In other words, there is NOTHING like a good mud race when it comes to making memories.

It seemed only 272 entries knew the true value of the experience that is a sensational slop-fest, surrounded by stars who would take on the exact same track 24 hours later.

A Monster puddle

On top of the Monster jump

This is how it looked from

The lap-scorer's window

The rain would not relent. It didn’t take a lot of arm twisting to convince everyone that a single moto would do the job on that soggy Saturday. Throughout, Lee Steeves, Larry Northrup, and the hard working Riverglade crew continued to cut channels to drain standing water and gracefully scrape away the most saturated soil.

There was no "dozing" for this crew

Is that a quadrofoil or a deep-vee

The new tower was certainly drier than the previous offering, but, when combined, the few extra feet between the tower and the finish line, the incessant rivers of rain running down the windows, and the brown film that covered every bike and rider, made following the motos mostly impossible.

In my few years around the sport, I have never seen a lap scoring crew try harder and face more frustration simply attempting to do their jobs. I’ve seen lap scorers lose it, but it’s usually one at a time. In this case, it was an entire scoring team, on the verge of tears, feeling the agony of being unable to do what they were hired to do. Nothing they tried helped. Riders were falling off, stopping on track, getting stuck, and sometimes even pulling off, and the lap sheets read like they were produced by a random number generator. There is no way to even come close to describing the chaos that unfolded in front of the group of highly experienced scorers. Nor is there a way to describe what Tammy Devlin went through as a result.

Detour ahead

Does the fault lie with the riders? In some cases, yes it does, but in others, riders had employed every trick in the book and still had illegible numbers within the first lap or two, depending on where the bike was in the field. Should we assign blame to the lap-scorers or track owners? All I saw there was a superhuman effort, above and beyond reason, and the frustration of trying but knowing it was a futile cause. Simply put, this was a disaster beyond human control.

This, in case you haven’t already figured it out, is the reason the “Fast-Five” have not yet been updated on this site. While there are still questions, there is no point publishing numbers that may still be in dispute.

I’d just like to express my admiration and congratulations one more time to everyone who soldiered through “Slop Saturday”. Somewhere along the line, and I missed it, MX has become a fair weather sport. I didn’t get that memo. Neither did over 200 riders who showed up and got dirty and had a blast doing it.

Still waters run deep
(Is that a periscope?)

One final note on Saturday; the only press release I saw issued regarding the Royal Distributing/Motovan amateur awards program said it was a go. Nothing further was issued after that first PR. Since Moncton was not on the exemption list, it would normally follow that awards and prizes would be part of our amateur day. For whatever reason, that did not happen. Nothing was communicated by anyone. It just simply disappeared and did not happen. I started following up first thing Tuesday, then realized that if anyone had said anything to Larry Northrup, he would already be working on the issue. My intuition was correct. I had been given Mark Stallybrass and Brett Lee as the contacts for this situation and Larry was already attempting to contact Mark. When he gets an answer, you will be the next to know.

"I'm pretty sure I can make it"

"I'm pretty sure it went down here"

Sunday

Sunday morning brought dew on the grass, a bright blue cloudless sky, and a gentle breeze. I related to Byron at the gate, then to many riders and crew people as I strolled through the pits, that I predicted “puffs of dust” by the end of qualifying. That’s right, I was predicting airborne dust, blue-groove jump faces, and hard, slippery, corners, from a track that was some kind of seemingly bottomless emulsion less than 24 hours before.

The dawn's early light

Goerke in flight

Shot by my bro on a Samsung phone

Marshall's meeting

The cleanest they'll be all day

Sunday morning dawned with wide open skies and a track that had been massaged and manipulated non-stop from the time the final Saturday checkered flag fell until the sun had broken the horizon and the smell of bacon permeated the air. The new loop through the ravine and back on to the finish straight would not debut this weekend. No amount of water management would prevent the soil in that section from becoming saturated and turning into quicksand. The work undertaken by the track crew was well intentioned, but this time it was Mother Nature’s chance to win out against many wise men, tons of earth-sculpting machinery, and the silent prayers on many lips.

Once it goes into effect, the section should add a couple of seconds to the lap times and possibly tighten up riders bottlenecking at the turn entrance. One worry is that the left turn that takes riders back onto the finish straight may not offer enough room for 250f bikes to get up to speed in order to clear the finish line jump. Even in the old configuration, the wet greasy surface on the up-hill kept MX2 riders close to the ground over the 100+ foot table during practice. A few, but not too many, finally started challenging the jump towards the end of qualifying. Of course, Dusty had to test the Klattapult.

The MX1 guys, for the most part, had no problem flying over the “bleacher creatures” with the original run-up. With a shorter run off a slower left hand turn, will the 450fs be able to apply the traction needed to hit that huge launch?

The calm before the swarm

Still a little "damp"

A second Matt Lee masterpiece awaited the Pros on Sunday. The amateur layout detoured around the new off-rhythm rhythm jumps, referred to as the Dragon Back. The amateurs would have struggled with this section and possibly even considered it dangerous.

For those who weren’t there, try this sketchy description. If you properly complete the “spectator” jump, you land nosing down with the tires touching the downslope simultaneously. Now, you use the short, abrupt compression and it’s steep up-face, to bleed off speed so you don’t launch as you roll over the crest.

If you intentionally launch out of the compression (tunnel jump), you still come up too short to make the first “rocker” in the set, with the added bonus that bike and rider will be immediately fired diagonally across the access road, landing somewhere handy the rubble pile that was the old tower. So what did these well seasoned professionals learn? If they watched practices and qualifiers, they would have learned there were two basic attacks and there seemed to be no advantage for either. Riding like you were skimming whoops proved to be the only choice for some riders, and timing your attack to ride it like a rhythm section was the only choice for the rest. Neither was faster.

The set-up

All you have to do is clear it

Practice for both MX2 groups was a constant bombardment of mud leeches and clingy goo, but things were getting churned in by the time the big bikes hit the track. As timed qualifying took to the track, it was already showing the telltale signs of packing in and puffing dust. MX2 Pro/Am guys from the region all got into the field on time. David Strang, 21^st, David Butler, 34^th, Rickey Hovey, 35^th, Curtis Doucet, 36^th, Brandon West, 37^th, Davey Smith 2-stroked his way in at 39^th, and Josh Archibald filled the final slot on the gate.

MX1 Pro qualifying saw as many strategies as there were riders on the gate. When the flag fell, all the regional entries had timed in to the field. A snakebit Mitch Cooke ran the HAF Skate & Tattoo Honda through timing 14^th fastest (in a one-off race). Davey Fraser got in to the top 20 at 18^th, Kyle Chatham was less than 3/10ths off Fraser’s pace, also starting top-20 from 19^th. The final Maritime rider to make the MX1 field was first-year-pro Brad Lockhart, who put the Freedom Cycle/Gamma Sales supported KTM on the line 31^st.

It's only first practice, gang

Topher Ingalls may have a hate on for “The Glade”, maybe because he caught a rock in the face early, but most other interviews had the rider, or mechanic, or family member praising the track and the fans. We did get behind on deep watering and there were a few dust complaints, nothing abnormal, and no dustier that most Calgary races. There were rocks in the face and rocks in the fingers…even rocks that target tires! Riverglade roost is Riverglade roost.

There were quite a few tip-overs, but the racing stayed incredibly tight and a number of enlightened rides brought riders presumed to be doomed back through the field where the big points live. There was an incredible amount of “will to win” on the line for both classes. It was an inspiring thing to see.

Andy White is in the house

So are the Allison Bros

What I find uninspsiring is the way backmarkers treat leaders. It was bad, ugly, and embarrassing. Granted, Sand Del Lee 2009 was the worst display I’ve ever seen, but our performance this time out did leave a bad taste in my mouth. I saw some of you indicate to the passing rider which side to go to. I saw some losing their own momentum by slowing and moving extremely high or low on the track, waiting for the leader to come through.

Sadly, what I also saw was a sizable handful of riders jamming up the turn and then accelerating as hard as they can off the turn. The bikes are very close in horsepower. If you accelerate at your hardest against a guy who is putting you a lap down, he won’t be able to pass you. Then, if you commit to the preferred line through the next turn, you are still holding him up. See the flag…listen to the bike coming in on you. Pick an off line (not the best rut in the turn) and do not change that line until he is by. You do not need to pull over for a blue flag. Just indicate your intentions, leave a little room, and don’t change lines once you’ve committed.

Meeting of the minds

#1 and ready to prove it

I won’t empty all the corners of my brain for this one article, so it’s probably time that I wrap it up. I won’t get into the details of a race that was the media sweetheart for more than a week. I’ll post a big list of links at the end of this piece. It just seems redundant to basically re-word what the media has done such a first class job on.

It was an epic day of racing before a huge crowd that seemed to get it. It was underdog stories, and comeback stories, and drama, and humour. There were performances I truly will never forget and too little time to take a breath say a personal hello to the dozens of people I only know through internet activities.

Are there things I would change if I had any say? No doubt about it. Do I think the Riverglade group did a four-star job with their event? Without question. Can it be bigger and better and more of everything? I believe it can.

When the dust had settled at the end of the day, this region sent 11 of our best to the line on Sunday, and the pure guts they showed by rolling into that gate is something the rest of us may never understand, but unquestionably should look up to.

They rode it, and they rode it to the bitter end. They persevered and made passes and managed their airspace, and carved their names in the history of motocross in Canada in 2011.