Quick Fill #37: This Week in GNCC

Welcome to Quick Fill. The arms race is on.

The Can-Am Unadilla GNCC will forever be known as the battle of broken arm for our staff. First, our fearless leader, Rita Coombs, took a spill on the ramp of her RV on Saturday, breaking her arm. But we don't call her fearless for nothing. She got a splint and a sling and went right back to work, not missing a beat for the rest of the weekend. X-rays? Cast? Surgery? Yeah right!

Then on Sunday evening, I was leaving the track to head home with video man Jason Hooper and photogs Matt Ware and Krista Shaw. We were wheeling the pristine 10-year old GMC Yukon with 196,857 miles on it, and the passenger side power window broke. Could we really handle the eight-hour drive through the night with the window wide-open? Probably not. Plus, back at the track, we had access to the GNCC work crew, which can fix anything, anytime, anywhere.

We found the ace of the crack fix-it staff, Tommy Harris and told him our troubles. He went to work on the door, trying to rip the panel off. Finally he said "hey, give me a hand here, I have a broken arm."

Broken arm?

Apparently Tommy crashed while riding the sweep lap on Sunday and broke his arm. He handed the sweep bike over, but kept on working on other stuff, and when we saw him a few hours later, he didn't have a splint, sling or even an ace bandage on his arm. Just walking around and working with it broken!

When you have racers as tough as we do, you need workers who can match. And of course Rita was back in our office on Wednesday, the day after she had a plate put in her arm, and Tommy is out working in the shop with a cast on. Reminds me of the day I did GNCC TV shows and wrote Quick Fill the day after shoulder surgery. We're in a dangerous business, but you had better not miss work!

On the track, the best story to emerge from the Unadilla weekend was "Batman" grabbing the www.motorcycleusa.com holeshot award in Sunday's XC1 bike race. Charlie Mullins had the jump going into turn one, but he washed out and crashed, taking Thad DuVall down with him. This jammed up the inside of turn one, and emerging around the outside was a ratted-out YZ250 with a batman sticker on the front plate, and the rider had an open-face helmet, and an enduro jacket with a wife-beater shirt underneath!

No one really knew who the guy was at first. Later, we identified his number and figured out it was New York's own Ben Bouwens, who raced GNCC in the 250 A class at one time, but now apparently just does local stuff. From what I gathered talking to the local folks, he's a pretty colorful character and not one to mess with out on the track. He kept pushing all day and ended up 14^th overall. That's pretty good, but it does go to show you that the factory boys, training, testing and riding full time, have advanced this series well beyond its roots, when basically any local privateer was on equal ground with the series champion. For a few minutes on Sunday, Ben Bouwens tried to turn back the clock and show that a local hero can come and upset the stars. It was fun to watch.

The bike race was amazing and awesome, superb and spectacular. It was old-school GNCC racing, with seven riders hooking up in a pack early, and then five battling at the mid-way point, and then two duking it out on the last lap. That's the way GNCC used to be every week, and that's what I went to the races for back when I joined this company in 2001. Since then we've seen Juha and Knighter make three-hour races into snoozers, but at 'Dilla, all was the way it used to be.

But be careful out there. Lapped traffic is always a big factor at Dilla because the turnout is so big, but it was exceptionally bad this year because the track was faster (no mud) and the battle was so intense. More than a few pro riders said they were worried about taking guys out or being taken out, and Thad DuVall actually did when he got hit in fourth-gear in a fast section. Thad thought he had broken his leg, turns out it was just some sort of strange muscle contusion, but he was in major pain and pretty mad, too. So, if you're in the afternoon classes, just be careful at these last three rounds-these riders are battling for contracts next year and they may not be nice about making passes, and we don't want any of our amateur riders getting taken down in the mix. Best advice: hold your line, and take them seriously. Don't try to race them, and don't think you can turn it up and speed through a section and not hold them up. You won't pull it off. We just want everyone to be safe out there.

Whibley played the lappers best and won it, with Kanney second. It was by far the best ride of the year for Kanney, we'll see if he can keep this up at the last three rounds. What was especially cool to watch was Nate's aggression anytime someone passed him he would go right back after them, which isn't normal GNCC behavior but makes for fun racing. He pulled off two crazy passes on Mullins and Strang in the pits and near the finish, motocross-type stuff. Read Tuesday Toolbox with Nate HERE, as penned by Rachel "The Office Starts Tonight!" Fluharty.

And Kurt Caselli was on the gas. On the first few laps, he was way, way back and struggling, but then Kurt finally came to life and showed the talent and speed we all knew he had in there somewhere. Kurt's riding a 280F (a 250F with a big-bore kit that KTM sells) and he had that bike working as he ran down Mullins for fourth. Maybe KTM will get a win or two before the year is up-but it looks like they will hand their #1 plate over.

They will get it back in the XC2 class, though. Kailub Russell is on the verge of wrapping the title up, if he wins in Yadkinville, it's over, and he'll race a 450 at the last two rounds. Also, Steward Baylor has clinched the 200 A title and will race XC2 at the next round, and he is expected to race XC2 for KTM next year. Rumor has it that Cory Buttrick will be 450 KTM bound next year, too. Where does that leave Caselli and Kanney? The silly season is extra silly this year, so we don't know. Just like in motocross, you're going to have some great riders looking for rides.

Remember KTM's original XC2 champ, Justin Williamson? He came to Unadilla on his Gas Gas but chose to race the Sportsman class in the morning. Mechanical troubles kept him from finishing.

Yamaha WRs are back! Last year Thad DuVall took a WR250F to the XC2 Title, this year he was running a YZ450F, but Thad had a headlight burning on his bike this weekend. And in XC2, Jason Thomas and Josh Weisenfels were on WRs after racing YZs earlier. Electric start is nice!

And here's a get well soon to Weisenfels. He crashed really, really hard on Sunday and we found him laying on the trail, literally out cold for a minute or two. It was bad. He eventually got up and is really just sore, but nothing is broken. That's good, because Josh is a good guy and just needs to build himself back up-talent wise, he can run with anyone, even though he won't admit that.

Looking for even more off-road bike news? Our man Jason Hooper officially launched his own site, www.digitaloffroad.com , last week. He already has some good stuff up there, so go bookmark it and check back frequently.

On to ATVs, Chris Borich has become the boss of the field. You can fight and battle all you want, but he is going to take charge at some point, and now this title is all but his. Before the race, I talked to Bill Ballance, and he said, "I know I'm going to win these last four rounds." The champ was that ready and that confident. But in the end, Borich just got away on the last lap. Hope to see at least one more classic "Killer B" battle between Borich and Ballance before the year is up...but Bill said he's not sure if he's racing next year or not. He doesn't want to go out this way, but the budget may ultimately decide what happens next.

A lot of the ATV guys were pumped before the race, they were all working super hard during the summer and you could sense the confidence before the race. Oddly, the rider that looked the least anxious to get out there was Brandon Sommers, and he went out and turned in his best ride of the year. Quiet confidence.

Looks like Angel Atwell has the Women's Championship just about wrapped, Traci Cecco got a tree caught between her exhaust and subframe and lost about two minutes getting out. That might be the last piece of bad luck Cecco can handle this year, as Atwell's win makes the title a virtual lock, although we'll have to go check the math first. Anyway, no one has worked and fought harder to get to this point than Atwell has through the years. She used to be "Ms third place" behind Cecco and Parton, and then she joined them, and now she's beating them. Well done.

By the way, our friends at MotorcycleUSA.com hooked up Traci Cecco for an interview. CLICK HERE.

In the 4x4 and Utility ranks, the Open 4x4 class offered up some great racing. Winner Scott Kilby said Unadilla was the best race he's been in since the Ironman GNCC in 1999, when he, Mike Penland and Rich Travelina went into the finale in title contention. This time the comp came from returning Open 4x4 Champ Bryan Buckannon, who was back in action after breaking his leg at Somerset. Bryan was in a cast up to his hip for 16 weeks (!!!) and could barely move his ankle at the race, but he rode fast and scored second-place points. Credit out to Polaris rider Darryl Rath, though. Rath Racing has been working tirelessly to make their Sportsmans work, and there's no doubt they have stepped up over the summer break, because Rath led most of this one and nearly pulled off his first win. We know some of you will scoff thinking this is a Can-Am sponsored series, but remember, Can-Am said they wanted the competition and had no issues with us raising the Open 4x4 displacement limit from 840 to 850 just so Polaris could race them. Now we have a race on our hands and it's fun to watch.

Kilby is now running the new for 2010 DPS power steering on his Outlander, an item Buckhannon has tested on and off all year. Kilby says it took some getting used to at first, because it's so hard to steer a 700 lb 4x4 that he used to just be able to yank on the bars as hard as he wanted and basically brace himself on the bars. Now, when you pull on them, the machine actually turns! Now that Kilby has gotten used to the DPS, though, he said he'll never go back. Also, he's one heck of a mechanic, because he took a big crash while riding over the summer and smashed his machine up pretty good. But he rebuilt it--even straightening parts of the frame-and took that very machine to victory at Unadilla!

Rick Cecco was the top Ute rider overall with seventh, and he won the U2 class.

Coming up in Yadkinville: Powersports Graf X customer appreciation ride day. They've rented out an awesome motocross track only ten miles from the GNCC course, and they ride day takes place Friday before the race. Be there.

Also in Yadkinville, the third annual GNCC vendor's row challenge. Organized by Racedaypix.com's Dave Smith and Powersports Grafx's Bart Hayes, it should be a good time. If you're a vendor or working member of the GNCC community, you know who you are and you should be racing. The VC3 (Vendor's Row Challenge #3) will start on the very last row of the morning bike race next Sunday.

Man, we're already at 2000 plus words so we better end this. I just want to say that we're back firing on all cylinders now, even if some of our staff is one armed. We're racing again next weekend, and even our TV shows are about to come back on the air in a few weeks. But you know, we have some really good videos and you can go and watch them when they're on, but BEYONCE HAD ONE OF THE GREATEST VIDEOS OF ALL-TIME!!! ONE OF THE GREATEST VIDEOS OF ALL-TIME!

Just wanted to say that. See you next week.