Welcome to Quick Fill, the first edition of 2013.

 

Hopefully everyone had a safe and happy holiday and here’s to hoping the return to work/school/real life wasn’t too much of a shocker.

 

As we flip the calendar to a new year, take some time to reflect on 2012 and the rollercoaster of events it brought our way. We lost several members of the racing community, gained a few along the way, witnessed beautiful marriages, experienced extreme joy and sadness, but most importantly we spent lots of time with friends and family doing what we love to do. I feel blessed to be surrounded by so many racers and families who are passionate about the sport of racing, not to mention all the wonderful people that work within this company and the industry.

 

In fact, I’ve been lucky enough to do what I love for exactly two years now. I started working at Racer Productions January 3, 2011 ”“ so today actually marks my two-year anniversary with the company. In a time where many young people are struggling to find a job out of college, I am thankful every day to not only have a job but also to be able to work in a field I’m passionate about.

 

Anyway, this weekend kicks off the 2013 Monster Energy Supercross season in Anaheim, California and I think we’re all more than ready to focus our attention on some kind of racing. Although we’re still 65 days away from the opening round at River Ranch, it sure will be nice to be somewhat into the swing of racing, at least the spectating side of things. Feld Motorsports has an awesome live video package this year streaming three hours of live video, covering practice and qualifying sessions during the day. To view the Supercross LIVE! details, click HERE. And then of course, you can catch the Main Events live on Speed at 9:30 p.m. ET.

 

Also happening on Saturday in Charlotte, North Carolina is the joining of Kailub Russell and his beautiful soon-to-be bride Chandler. Judging from the number of motor heads that will be in attendance, I have a feeling a big screen TV will somehow make an appearance at the reception roughly around 9:30 p.m. ET. I’m definitely excited to see Mr. and Mrs. KR557 tie the knot this weekend and here’s to wishing them a lifetime of happiness!

 

I talked to #7 ATV Pro Kevin Yoho this week and it sounds like he and the crew are hard at work training down south. Kevin made the trip with ATV College A rider Michael Mcavoy and 250 A bike rider Nathan Ziklo where they met up with Thad DuVall, Layne Michael, Aaron Plessinger and Ethan Jaudas to ride Palmetto MX in South Carolina and then Brushy Mountain in North Carolina. Kevin said the crew had a blast riding at both places and it was a nice mixture because the Palmetto sand prepped them for Florida’s terrain and Brushy Mountain was very similar to what they’ll see at Round 3 for Steele Creek. Kevin Yoho is the type of rider you can’t help but to love, he’s probably the nicest guy on and off the track. His results show that he’s only improving as time goes on and I think with a little more edge we could see Kevin as a consistent top five contender next season.

 

This week, ATV Pro Mark Notman announced that he won’t be lining up on the front line in 2013. Mark commented on Facebook that he will be focusing on a good friend’s career and working with a new team this season, which most likely points to a mechanic job within GNCC. We wish the best of luck to Mark with his new career path and hope to announce his plans shortly.

 

Bolton has some info on what’s happening in the bike world, so I’ll pass things along to him. At this time next week hopefully you all will be prepping for the drive to Morgantown to celebrate the 2012 GNCC season in style.

 

And here’s @JaredBolton:

 

It almost seems hard to believe but we’re now officially three days into 2013. I know a lot of people talk about this, but it really does seem like time flies and it seems like it was just last weekend that we were kicking the 2012 season off and we’re now just a couple of months away from kicking the 2013 season off. I know I’m not alone in saying that I wish it was already that time, but before we know it, that time will have come and gone. For now though, the excitement is really starting to build and we’re looking at a great season coming up.

 

What is going to make it great you ask? Well, just take a look at how interesting the 2012 season was for both bikes and ATV’s. On one side, we saw great wheel-to-wheel racing week in and week out that seemed to come down to the wire many times. On the other side, we saw not one, but TWO championship battles come down to the final round, separated by just a few points. It makes you wonder what kind of action the 2013 season will bring us.

 

Speaking of 2013, it looks like Takeshi Koikeda has a new ride! Digital Offroad reported yesterday that Takeshi will be racing aboard a Honda CRF450 backed by Ride Center USA out of Hazard, Kentucky (not the home of the Duke Boys) Litz Racing, and South of the Border. Takeshi showed great improvement throughout the 2012 season and we actually saw him running up front, even in the lead, as the season wore on. It definitely seemed that Takeshi has been figuring the GNCC game out and we could very well see him wind up on the podium in 2013.

 

There are still a few riders that we know have rides lined up for 2013 but we’re still waiting to hear the final details. We know Josh Strang will be on a Kawasaki but it hasn’t been released yet as to what the exact details of that ride are. I also mentioned a few weeks ago that Chris Bach has a ride lined up for 2013 but can’t release the details just yet. Regardless, it’s good to hear that these guys have something set up for 2013 and will be back on the front row.

 

We also know that Paul Whibley will return to defend his title. It seems like there’s rumors that float around every year that Whibs will return to New Zealand but he keeps coming back year after year. We did a Tuesday Toolbox with Whibs a while back and he did mention there that he does have the riding park in New Zealand that he plans on running when he finally does step away from full-time racing but it looks like that’s still a few years out.

 

While Whibs may have a few years on some of the other guys who are challenging him for wins and titles, he’s still going strong proving that age is just a number. By no stretch of the imagination is Whibs old but he does have 12 years on Kailub Russell, who was his closest challenger in 2012. However, Rodney Smith is a prime example that it doesn’t matter how old you are, as he won his final title in 2004 at the ripe age of 40 and he still stuck around contending for wins and podiums on through 2006 and again in 2007 in the XC2 class.

 

Moving on to some recent racing, last weekend I hosted a GP event at Zoo City Motocross in Asheboro, North Carolina. I pieced together a little over a mile of woods with just under a mile of motocross track. We ran a motocross style format with two 20 minute motos, so you not only had to be good in the woods but you had to be strong on the motocross track as well and be able to stay on the gas for that whole 20 minutes. It definitely made things that much more interesting.

 

In the first moto of the pro class, the riders ran wheel-to-wheel for the first few laps with Cody Gragg out front, but pro motocrosser Ryan Zimmer gave a good challenge on the motocross track. However, I was told that Ryan has never done any sort of woods race, so he struggled a bit there and faded as the moto wore on. It ended up being former GNCC mini standout Trevor Barrett who challenged Gragg into the final portions of the race. Gragg snagged the moto win over Barrett, while Jesse Robinson hung in there for third.

 

The second moto saw the real battle and Trevor Barrett made his way around Cody Gragg early on and Gragg had to charge hard to try to make up the time. The guys were turning such fast lap times that they were going to end up coming in a bit under the 20 minute mark so I actually made the call to run them an additional lap. That ended up being when the pass for the lead would be made. As they took the white flag, Barrett led Gragg by just a couple of bike lengths but about ¾ of the way around the motocross track, Gragg dove inside of Barrett and drove him high and slightly off the track to take the lead. In the end, Gragg went 1-1 for first overall ahead of Trevor Barrett who went 2-2 for second, and Tyler Bruton taking third with a 5-3 moto finish.

 

Overall it was a great event and even with being timed kind of tough right after Christmas, it was still a popular event and I can’t thank the Barry and Krista Maness and the entire Zoo City staff for letting us all come out and play for the day, and of course thanks to the racers and spectators who made it out.

 

Alright, that’s going to do it for me this week. Until next time, Bolt-On out.