When circumstances or a situation works against you, you face adversity.

Adversity, a noun which has been part of the English language for over 800 years, comes from the Latin adversitatem "opposition" and is related to the preposition, versus, a word common in legal or battle language meaning "against." When things seem against you ”” circumstances or a stoke of bad luck ”” you are facing adversity. Sometimes people use a form of the phrase, "turning adversity into opportunity/advantage." This refers to the ability some people or companies have to take a bad situation and make it into a successful one.

For anyone who didn’t know what that word meant but you were at the race on Sunday, maybe even as a spectator, you have now seen a real life example of the word!  With temps all over the board the week coming up to the race it was hard to know what would great us at the track on Sunday morning. 

After a long cold winter break it was finally time to bust out the new parts, sharp edged tires, fresh gear, and helmet camera’s could be found on just about every row.  And that’s how you know it’s time to go racing!!!!  Sunday was the first round of the IXCR and MWXC race series for 2013 and it was a record breaking day.  With 643 racers signing up this was a huge event that took place in what started out with below freezing temps and they soared (that is being said very scartasticly) into the upper 30’s by the day’s end.  The action stared on Saturday afternoon when 17 UTV’s took to the sand and gravel.  At the end of four laps and just over an hour of racing Team IXCR Pilot Craig Bowman finished out front with former quad rider Spencer Haggard runner up.  Josh Patton rounded out the Podium on his Polaris just a few seconds back which is a huge accomplishment in one of these buggies.  For those of you who aren’t around on Saturday night to check these guys out I think it would be worth your time to do some weekend.  They carry crazy speeds through the wood and its amazing where they can get thru at.

Sunday morning brought frigid temps and the reminder of just how big this sport is getting in Indiana.  I’ll take this opportunity to plug the opportunity we all have to Pre-Register for each even.  I know a lot of people were talking about the lines at sign up and this is something we are working to improve on.  The first race is always rough getting everyone entered into the system but I think most everyone enjoyed being able to stand around the barrel fires that the Badlands put out for us to stay warm and catch up with friends who we hadn’t seen since last year.

Forty Eight Youth bikes lined up and they may have had the trickiest conditions to deal with.  At this point the ground was still frozen and these kids did a great job of getting around the long course.  Hilltop Motorsports Caleb Pierson was the overall winner with Tyler Darmon and Chase Mundy in tow. 

Next up was the youth quads, this race saw 44 of tomorrow’s best racers take the line and at the end of an hour and seventeen minutes of splashing thru mud/ice puddles Jacob Borszem was able to finish out the day on top followed up by the Picture Lady’s little boy Brandon Ball.  Third overall went to the Yamaha mounted rider from Trenton, Oh Mr. Cory Estridge.  Great job to all of our youth who battled the tough conditions and did more laps than a lot of the adults!!!

The next race was by far one of the most impressive starts I have ever seen at a local race.  There were 318 racers lined up from all over the surrounding states.  It’s crazy to think that after two hours of racing there was just over a minute between our top two finishers.  Overall winner was a familiar face with IXCR in Chris Douglas on his factory Husaqvarna/Fly Racing bike.  Chris has been training in the off season very hard and the results show it’s been worth the work!  Second place was Duell Murphy followed up by an up and coming star Austin Lee on his Kawasaki.  With a track that included sand whoops, creek crossings, sand whoops, ice, sand whoops, mud, and more sand whoops this was a challenging as course as could ever be done on a two wheeled machine.  My hat is off to all 318 of you who competed and did all you could to keep the machine with the rubber side down.  Other notable finishes include 7^th overall Jesse Parr coming from Heavy A, Isaac Faine 9^th overall from A Lites, Robert Wilkerson was 11^th overall coming up from Vet A, Joey Suges worked his way from the B Lites row up to 17^th overall, I’m also gonna give a shout out to 37^th overall Brett Terchaila in the Senior A 40+ row.  He was the last guy on the track who completed 5 laps!  That is a true accomplishment!  Another job well done to all racers and hopefully next track will be a little more user friendly for our two wheeled friends.

The last race of the day belonged to the adult ATV’s and Hometown hero Marshall Goings.  I know Marshall rides the Badlands a lot and his finished like our bike overall winner shows how much hard work can pay off.  Marshall pulled his fellow SICC Racing teammates and brothers Fred and Michael Marley to podium finishes for round one of 2013.  Mike Mettendorf moved up to the A class and started the year off right finishing 6^th overall and our first A class finisher.  Another local rider Jordan Hollingsworth put his Moto-Xperts Honda in 9^th overall and 1^st place in B 15-23, Aaron Pridgen finished 12^th overall coming from the 22+C class and Brent Marshall won the Senior B class and finished an impressive 13^th overall.  Not bad for an old man!!!! 216 quad riders lined up and several of us only completed one lap.  The track had started to thaw out and everything turned to slop and was very very wet.  To anyone who finished this race you earned your finish and learned the definition of the fighting thru Adversity!

Next up for IXCR is March 23/24^th in Scottsburg, In and MidWest will be back in action March 3^rd in Greencastle, In.  We appreciate the amazing turn out and we hope this is just a sign of things to come for this season.  Be sure to check out the updated websites www.ixcr.com and www.midwestxc.com .  Pre-registration will be up for IXCR’s next round a couple weeks before race day so be sure to make use of this and check us out on facebook.

Until next time stay between the trees!

Garon Davis