Welcome to Quick Fill.

And so the off-season begins! People always ask what do the full-time folks do in the winter months when there isn’t any racing going on, thinking it must be pretty lackluster around the office. But the truth is, most of the heavy lifting takes place November - March. Between all the properties here, there is so much prep work, pre-planning and decision making to do before the following season that Round 1 comes before we know it!

I want to start off by saying congratulations to all the GNCC champs this season! It was an amazing year for racing and we were very fortunate to have the race conditions we did all year long. Everybody should be proud of the hard work and dedication that went into 2012 and it’s great to see how many are already anxiously looking forward to next season.

Today we met with the folks at Waterfront Place Hotel here in Morgantown to discuss this year’s GNCC banquet (January 11 and 12, 2013) and also to nail down some dates for next season’s event. Turns out there’s actually a college football team that people follow around here so we have to wait and see what dates they choose to be in town next season. We actually grabbed a handful of dates around the end of November and into December in hopes that football won’t trump every single one. We understand that GNCC racers like to have their awards banquet closer to the date of the final round, so that’s what we’re trying to accomplish. We will send out an announcement as soon as we’re ready to begin accepting banquet reservations, which will also have champion jacket sizes etc.

We mentioned last week that the 2013 schedule would be out this week but unfortunately we had one hiccup that prevented us from finalizing. Most likely we will have the final thing next week sometime, but again, don’t hold us to that just yet! It’s pretty difficult to cover all bases and make sure the racers are able to make it to other races besides GNCC’s. I can tell you, we will kick things off once again at Westgate River Ranch March 9 ”“ 12, in conjunction with Daytona Bike Week. Therefore, we will head straight to Georgia March 16 and 17 for The General like normal. Take that info and most definitely begin your travel plans as we will be going there for sure in 2013. However, the rest of the schedule may need to be tweaked around some more, which is why we haven’t released it yet. So stay tuned and we will have that out as soon as we can. Much, much before last year J

Congratulations to the GT Thunder I team for taking the 2012 Parts Unlimited GNCC Dealer Challenge! The GNCC Dealer Challenge is an incentive program designed to enhance the involvement of dealership support to racers in the GNCC series. Throughout the season, teams earned points every round based on each team member’s respective class-finish. This year we had a ton of teams enter and it was a pretty cool way for amateur racers to get into the spirit of additional competition and camaraderie. There are quite a few amateur teams out there already, but the Dealer Challenge has opened up a new wave of teams that have offered up even more support and teamwork at the races, which is awesome to see. After talking to GT Thunder’s Laz Sommers today, I realized just how serious the racers took the Dealer Challenge and how much it meant to their team to take the win. The winning team consisted of Dave Simmons, who led the way with a perfect season in the ATV Super Senior (45+) class, Glenn McConnell, who topped the Masters (50+) division, Senior A (38+) class-winner Tom Wright and Brayden Shick, who took home second in the Schoolboy (13-15) A/B division. Just looking at their results on paper, that team is pretty SOLID! I mean, Super Dave nailing a perfect season gave them 13 wins alone, and the rest of the crew added 17 more among the three of them, which is pretty amazing. So kudos to them. Now if they could just figure out which two are going to Vegas!

Before I go, I just want to say thanks to everyone who supported me on Saturday as I lined up for the Vendor’s Challenge at Loretta’s. Lining up on the last row of the AM race (23 minutes behind the front row or something) I was pretty pumped to put in 3 laps, especially after peeling myself out of the desk chair without riding in forever! It’s pretty cool to be in the woods hearing people cheer you on or coming through the MX track and seeing people encouraging you to keep going. So thanks again to everyone who went out of their way, I surely appreciate it! Shout out to FMF’s Jeff Northrop for taking the VC6 crown this year and Tony Wenck from Pit Pass Radio who took the runner-up spot. Racer Productions is coming for ya’ll next year! I think it’s time to see B Hawk represent...

@JaredBolton:

The 2012 season has officially come and gone and it really seems like it went by in a flash. We saw a lot of great racing this season with the ATVs always providing great wheel-to-wheel racing that always seemed to come down to the last time, and the bikes coming down to the final round with 1 point separating the championship battles in both the XC1 and XC2 classes. Throw in some awesome UTV racing in addition to great racing throughout the amateur and mini classes in both the bike and ATV ranks, and there’s no doubt that 2012 made for one of the best seasons in GNCC history.

We also made a lot of different history this season. The Unadilla GNCC drew the largest racer turnout we’ve ever had, Paul Whibley snagged every holeshot in the XC1 class (Snowshoe doesn’t count), Maria Forsberg came away with an undefeated season in the Women’s class, Chris Borich proved that he’s still the number one guy to beat by snagging his fourth straight championship, we saw the epic XC1 and XC2 points battles, and more. When you take all of this into account, there’s no doubt that it definitely made for one of the most interesting seasons of GNCC Racing we’ve ever had.

Speaking of Maria Forsberg’s undefeated season, Natalie Simmons from Vice Versa MX made her way out to Loretta Lynn’s last weekend for her first ever GNCC experience and put together a cool video of the Women’s bike class and caught up with Maria to hear about her 2012 season and more. Head over and check it out. It’s a really cool piece on the Women’s class and definitely worth checking out”¦ http://viceversamx.com/loretta-lynns-gncc-video/

While the XC1 and XC2 titles were being decided in the Afternoon race, many of the racers saw the fire that happened during the race. I’ve seen bikes catch fire before, but there was absolutely no saving that one and it made for one heck of an obstacle for the riders. Not only that, but the Loretta Lynn’s GNCC now has a new name for one of its obstacles. That hill will forever be known as “Fire Hill” and there’s no doubt in my mind that it was one of the wildest things I’ve ever seen in the woods at any race.

What about the actual racing action that went down? Well, a lot of people were hoping to see an all out battle down to the wire between Paul Whibley and Kailub Russell. Unfortunately that never really happened as KR went down in the first turn and my understanding is that he got a pretty bad case of arm pump trying to make up time. The course seemed to suit Whibley’s style as he pulled a pretty sizeable lead over everyone in the final stages of the race while Kailub worked his way into second.

However, one rider that had a heck of a ride for a good portion of the race was Takeshi Koikeda. Takeshi stayed up front with Paul Whibley and Jordan Ashburn for most of the race and actually even snagged the lead for a little while. There’s no doubt that Takeshi has definitely been finding his groove in the GNCC Series late in the year and his solid ride at Loretta’s definitely showed that. Hopefully Takeshi is back next season and maybe we’ll see him make his way onto the podium. With a little extra time, there’s no doubt in my mind that he could be a podium contender.

Thad Duvall put a cap on his best XC1 season yet with another solid top 5 finish at Loretta’s coming home with 4^th place. Thad tweeted yesterday that he would be back next year on a Shenandoah Honda with some sort of Factory Honda support. We’ll be hearing more down the road but that’s definitely good news for Thad after a solid 2012 season. Another rider who had a stellar 2012 season was WMR KTM’s Rory Mead who snagged a pair of wins in 2012 along with a few other podium finishes and finished the season out with a solid 3^rd in the final point standings. Mead has proved himself to be the man to beat on the more technical tracks and had some good showings even when the terrain wasn’t as technical. Hopefully we’ll see more of Mead on the podium in 2013.

While some are already looking forward to 2013, two faces that will be absent from the XC1 class will be those of Jimmy Jarrett and Nate Kanney who have both officially said that 2012 was their last season. Kanney logged his fair share of wins between a privateer Yamaha effort several years ago, then more with the Factory KTM team. He also had solid rides and podium finishes with the WMR KTM and JG Offroad Honda teams in the past few years. Nate will definitely be missed on the front row, along with Jimmy who holds the record for longest period between race wins with his wins being the John Penton in 2000 and Unadilla in 2010.

The silly season is now upon us, so all the rumors will be rolling in soon. If you have something you’d like to share openly or in confidence, drop me a line at [email protected]! That’s going to do it for me this week. Until next time, Bolt-On out!

@HotRodney22:

This year, like I have said several times, has been long but it has also seemed to fly by rather quickly. As little sense as that makes, most may agree. As you look back over thirteen rounds of racing there have been so many things happening that it would be hard to actually put it all in one article. Heck it could probably make a novel. A novel that would have everything but a love story and if we dig deep enough, there is probably one in there somewhere. Oh wait a minute, there was V-Mar and Nolan Whitesells’ wedding at River Ranch and then there was Jeff and Traci's wedding late in the season. So I stand corrected.

The Loretta Lynn GNCC brought it all to a climax with the final championships being decided in so many classes. There was a lot of focus however on the XC1 and XC2 battles that went virtually down to the bitter end. In the end Paul Whibley reclaimed his XC1 GNCC title he had been fighting feverishly to regain since he lost it in 2010. And in the XC2 Pro Lites a dream came to fruition through adversity, trials and against the odds when Jason Thomas finally captured the title that had eluded him for several years of his racing career.

As far as the title battles in the ATV racing on Sunday, the XC1 Pro class was wrapped up but the way the racing went down with 6 different leaders and at least 10 lead changes throughout the day one would have thought it was all on the line. Chris Borich left the day with a signature "explanation point" on the day and season when he came from behind to make the pass in the final mile and inch one step closer to the all time wins record. If I am counting right, 10 wins for the season puts him at 59 total overall race wins, now just 9 away from a tie for the record and 10 away from owning it.

The XC2 Pro Am class had its moments for the day as well. It came down to the duo of "LP" Little Pat McGuire and Braden "Hornet" Henthorn (nickname pending) in the battle for the championship. McGuire who needed to win and beat Henthorn by a couple of positions to cover a six point deficit had one goal for the day and that was to win and hope for the best behind him.

As the green flag flew, everything was going according to plan for LP. He snagged the $100 MotoSport.com Holeshot award and like we have seen on other occasions, he began to literally check out from the rest of the field. When the end of the first lap came to a close it became apparent something had gone wrong for his main competition of Henthorn. There was no sign of Braden at the end of lap one and it was not long that a report came in from the track crew that they were standing by with Henthorn who had blown a motor in the most important race of the season.

It didn't take long for McGuire to realize something wasn't right when he passed him on the second lap sitting off the side of the trail. McGuire then knew all he had to do was finish and he was able to relax. Just past the midway point though his lead had struck from over a minute to just seconds and was passed after a fuel stop and dropped all the way back to 6th. A heart wrenching moment for his fans as they wondered if he had crashed or had a mechanical error. Though knowing at this point he just needed to stay 12th or better and he had it in the bag. 

The night before I had the opportunity to talk to both of the contenders’ fathers. Both were excited and hopeful for their own child but seemed equally as excited for the others chances as well. Rick Henthorn told me that he would like to see Braden win but no matter what he was going to get to be in the championship photo. He knew this because Braden and Pat are such good friends off the track and that he felt as happy for Pat as he did for Braden.

I think the championship photo says a lot with Braden on the podium with the supporters and family. Braden is holding a #2 sign while everyone else is flashing the #1. He was happy for his buddy but you know he would have been a little brighter had he been inviting Pat up to share in his moment. Either way the 19-year-old Henthorn says he is moving up to row one next season to tackle the XC1 Pro Class while McGuire plans to stick around another season in the Pro Am class to defend his championship.

Another interesting note to the finale for these two was the fact that Pat parked his quad in the Henthorn trailer the night before the race. Rick (Braden’s Dad) told LP to park it under the light in the front of the trailer so he could "work" on it for him with a chuckle. After Braden's mechanical problems, I asked Rick if he "worked" on the wrong one by mistake and said, "that's obvious", laughed and walked away.

The season and the weekend holds so many stories and I honestly feel that we will be able to spend a lot of time over the next few weeks breaking things down and talking about some of the back stories that each championship and top 10 contender had throughout the season. 

One could say that the 2012 GNCC was a racing season of "Epic Proportions" that will live in our hearts and memories for a long time. Over the next few editions of Quick Fill I will share some of my moments of the season and we would love to hear yours. So if you would like to share, drop me and email to [email protected].

Before we move on this week I would like to invite you to check out this weeks edition of Quad Radio Live featuring former ATV great Chad Duvall and his son Thad Duvall. Thad talked about his year on the bikes as well gave us some pretty cool insight on his dad. I was amazed how closely he follows the ATV side of things and he even said he wanted to race a quad at Loretta's this year.

Congratulations again to all of the top 10 class finishers and champions for 2012. The banquet looks like it could be a ways off so be watching for all the information and make your reservations for our "Night of Champions". 

That's it for now. Till next time, God Bless Your Heart and All Your Vital Organs