Gary Belbeck has a lot on his plate this season. Along with assisting with  the website at www.QuadZone.com and helping XC2 rider Brian Wolf  run a successful season, Belbeck races himself. This weekend, Belbeck and the Quad Zone team will organize a benefit cookout on Friday night at the  Mountain Ridge GNCC. The website celebrates its fifth anniversary this year, and the big cookout at the track will generate proceeds for RiderDown.org. With everything on his plate Belbeck emphasizes keeping racers and fans alike happy and healthy through the use of his Web site and charity benefits.

Tell me about this cookout you're having?
I guess we have it just to give back to our site members and site sponsors.  It started out really small. I guess I just took it upon myself to make it bigger each year. I just challenged myself to do it and obviously it's gotten bigger.

What gave you the idea?
At some other race locations, it was too far to go back into town, and there are sparse locations for restaurants. So I was just like, Hey, I'll just start feeding everybody. Somerset takes so long to drive back to the community to find anything to eat, so we thought this was a good place to put it.  The caterer calls it "Putting on the feed bag" But his son is also a racer, Jeff Ferguson. He has experience feeding big crowds of people and he was going to the races anyway. He has the equipment to feed upwards of 300 people.

How many people do you typically see?
Last year it was upwards of over 300 people.

The menu was definitely making me hungry!
There's protein and lots of carbs. Especially for the families. A lot of the family members go there. Leaving right after work and being late to the track, a lot of family members like to go over there and camp out. So this works out well for them.

Why do you always have it at Somerset?
The location. Somerset is kind of out in the boonies a little bit. Not a lot of local restaurants or anything like that around there. And the location of the caterer, he's from Pennsylvania. So it worked out well. He doesn't have that far to go to transport equipment.

You're doing a raffle too?
We're having a big raffle with a huge list of prizes (note: see the prize list below). We're also doing free door prizes also for people who don't purchase a raffle ticket. This year we've added on a 5 dollar ticket for big ticket items. So, buy raffle tickets and you get the chance to win some great stuff.

This raffle benefits RiderDown.org. Why did you choose that organization?
We've had some fellow racers who have been injured. Rider Down has stepped in with assistance with them and we figured, with the economy the way it is, with contributions down, it's an event where everyone is getting together, people within the industry, our sponsors donating products we can raffle off and have proceeds go to Rider Down.

So tell me a little bit about Quad Zone. When did you get started?
Back in 2002-2003 it was kind of a brain storm of one individual. He got together one eveing with industry leaders and pioneered the idea and discussed it with them. Â  We went back with a plan of action. Then Rob Richeson "Rico" was brought on board to do the daily administration to oversee the site. Then, after Rob, I was brought on board to do moderation and I stepped up to do all the marketing and site sponsorship and daily news and operation of the site. Behind the scene are investors and it's really a team of individuals who make Quad Zone what it is today.

What were some of the challenges you faced when you started with Quad Zone?
There were a lot of sites out there already, but as far as making sure that we have the right information and to keep it in the right direction to keep the interest of the people.  The internet was really growing at that time. Really the focus  was What's going to grab attention?  Some of that time was during that two-stroke to four-stroke switchover. That really helped a lot of it with some of the newer quads. Our main focus is not to be in competition with other sites. It was kind of a zone rather than someone having to go to a multitude of websites to get information we made an effort to search other sites to bring information to them.  We would do a daily task to research that and provide link to the website to be informed on that. Oftentimes it would create a subject related to that issue.

What kind of other conversations are you seeing on the Website and who is posting?
We have high membership. We're predominately GNCC racers, and we have a lot of trail rider individuals. A lot of the racers, a lot of families of racers, too. We also do race coverage. We provide photos for the race and live discussions during the races. People are monitoring live scoring from the GNCC site, but we also have a forum section of people talking while that's going on. Family members on there stuck at home that have a chance to keep in tune with the race.

You also help out with Brian Wolf in the XC2 race. What do you do for him?
Brian works railroad construction so he's away from home during the week. He would be tearing down his quad on Friday night getting it ready for the race and he was doing really well. I just stepped in to offer him help with contacts from sponsors and get him motivated. I'm kind of a mini Darrel Bozarth (who works with Don Ockerman).  I make sure he has the right resources, and make sure he eats all the green stuff on his plate. He has a good team of people helping him out--Yamaha and GT Thunder--They handle the race and the quad operation side. I just try to keep him motivated.

What direction do you want to take Quad Zone?
We want to make sure we keep our customers happy. If we can continue on to have other charity events. That's awesome if we can give back. We're not out there to compete with other websites. We've had over a thousand people hitting on the site during the races from all over the country. Huge following from Venezuala and United Arab Emirates, even. We're happy to be there. There are a lot of people involved in the site. These are key people involved in the industry so I think that's really what helped out quite a bit. We want to have riders go home safely from events. Hopefully, with RiderDown.org, it's our number one deal. As a racer, as a newbie, you might get attacked or labeled as a newbie on forums. But they get taken upon the wings of other individuals. What's cool is you'll see that newbie on year-end awards. That puts a smile on our faces. Especially the friends made. Obviously people are competitors, but the support of other riders is still there. You might need a part on Friday, post it on Quad Zone and people will see that and help them out. Rather than call them goals I call them "cool things."

Well thanks for your time today, Gary!
Thank you Racer Productions and all of our loyal fan support for making the web site a success!