So there we were, XC1 riders Josh Strang and Rory Mead, along with David Quillen, and we were ready to turn loose in Japan. Our new friend Yoshi, who was already a good friend of Josh’s, was nice enough to pick us up at the airport and transport us around throughout the trip. It was really nice to have someone to translate and make sense of the new world we were engulfed in.

We had a pretty massive drive to our first destination as we immediately drove six hours from the airport to crash at the JNCC test track. The first night we stayed in a quaint little cabin-like building with hideaway bunk beds, which turns out to be the clubhouse for a riding park that runs year round in a town near Nagano City, home of the 1998 Winter Olympics. That next morning Rory and Josh met up with their respective teams for the weekend and got some solid testing in. The folks at KTM Japan were gracious enough to provide Rory with a 450SX and the RG3 Japan crew provided Josh with a KX250F for the weekend, both of which were solid deals for the guys. It was amazing how nice and extremely helpful everyone was in getting both riders prepped for the race, especially considering they had never met any of us!

We were able to walk the track on Saturday afternoon so we didn’t have to rush things on race day. Although the course was only about 5 miles long, that sucker was pretty brutal! Think of the technicality and rockiness of Snowshoe and then add an extra element of trickiness and that’s what this course was like. Similar to Snowshoe, this race took place on a beautiful ski resort with picturesque mountains, long slopes and tons of woods but the rock gardens here were compiled of smaller loose rocks, which made for a difficult hill climb along some of the creek beds. We walked the whole thing (or at least it felt like we did) and both riders felt like they had a pretty good grasp on things before heading back to the hotel. After a very sleepy and jet-lagged dinner, we all hit the sack pretty early in order to be ready for Sunday’s race. Now keep in mind we were 14 hours ahead of the Eastern Time Zone so things got a bit confusing for us the first couple of days we were there. Sleep was pretty sparse, at least for me.

As we pulled into the race Sunday morning, it dawned on me that I only had one sole responsibility at this race: to be a journalist! I honestly wasn’t sure what to do with myself as I only had a GoPro and an iPhone to capture as much content as I possibly could, especially considering I didn’t have WiFi or cell service all day. I attempted to help the guys out, but they had all the people they needed and more so I set off to explore the Youth and Morning races myself. There were an impressive amount of riders in the morning, something like 350, but since the course was so short, there were only about 7 or 8 rows on the start. Now if you’ve ever witnessed a giant C class row in GNCC you already know how crazy it can be. Well, multiply that by 3 and that’s what some of the rows were! It was a spectacle to see, but somehow I think every one of those riders managed to make it through and finish the race.

Both Josh and Rory were well received by the Japanese fans. It was super cool to see how many fans the GNCC Racers have accumulated from all over the world and how truly excited they were to watch these guys race. Opening ceremonies were especially interesting. In addition to the Japanese flag, they had the New Zealand, Australian and American flags waiving at the start of the PM race. They even incorporated the Kiwi and Aussie National Anthems into the mix!

It was pretty cool to hear the oh-so-familiar “TEEENNNN SECONNNDS” call from the JNCC announcer among the otherwise unfamiliar Japanese introductions. Rory pulled a “KR557” at the start of the race, firing up his electric start a little prematurely but this time there was no penalty. I’m pretty sure he was given the language barrier slide on that one. Either way, he shut it down and left the line just after the rest of the pack. By the end of the first lap Rory and Josh were leading and both riding awesome but problems slowly began to arise for Rory from there. Coming into the race, Josh was a little worried about his lack of power being a bigger guy on a 250F and Rory was feeling good about being the only rider on a 450. But that quickly changed as they both realized the loose rocks were going to be a challenge. Rory ended up frying the battery on his electric-start-only bike and was forced to undergo a battery swap by his factory mechanic DQ. Josh was able to maintain a good pace out front, grabbing his first ever JNCC win at the AAGP finale.

From there, we spent a couple days touring Tokyo and the surrounding area before heading back to the airport for the long journey home. I feel so blessed to have the opportunity to experience a place like Japan. We not only got to see another aspect of the off-road racing world we love so much, but we were able to experience and appreciate an entirely different culture. I think I can speak for the entire group when I say we had a fabulous time and couldn’t have asked for a better group of people to welcome us.

I want to say thank you to Masami, Yoshi, Carrie Jo, KTM Japan, RG3 Japan and everyone else who helped all of us make the journey to Japan and I only hope I can return sometime in the near future.

Well, I’m officially done with my podium speech this week! Just a quick reminder to get those banquet reservations in so you can reserve your room and table for the 2013 GNCC Banquet at Waterfront Place in just a couple of weeks. Check out the GNCCRacing.com website for more info.

Here’s Bolton with some non-Japan related material.

@JaredBolton:

We’re almost full swing into the off-season now! There were a few more final races of the year happening around the country last weekend, while some of the others who run a “late year to early next year” schedule are still getting going. The 2013 GNCC Racing season may have already come and I feel like I’ve said this every year for the past few years but it was definitely a heck of a season.

The last few weeks I’ve mentioned several of the class winners that were already wrapped up prior to the Ironman but there were also some that came down to the wire, other than just that battle between Kailub Russell and Charlie Mullins. In fact, the Youth bikes saw an equally close battle. I called with the “Battle of the Carolinas” between North Carolina’s Braxton McGee and South Carolina’s Cole Mattison.

The duo of McGee and Mattison kept each other close all season and it ended up coming down to the wire. Those two kept each other in sight, swapping the lead several times throughout the hour and a half youth race before McGee finally ended up pulling away for the win, and the Youth Overall Championship.

It’s always interesting to watch a championship come down to the wire but it’s even better when there’s multiple championships coming down to the wire… Well, unless you’re one of the racers involved. Then it’s pretty nerve racking!

Glancing down through some of the other classes, we all know how things shook out in the XC1 and XC2 ranks so I’ll keep moving right along to Open-A where Bob Dunlap came away with the class championship. I first noticed Bob in 2011 when Digital Offroad did an interview with him after he was the last rider to finish on the lead lap at Snowshoe this year and his elapsed race time? 4 hours, 6 minutes and 21 seconds. That’s incredible. 2 years later, he’s your Open-A class champion!

Zach Love actually wrapped up the 250-A title before Ironman and jumped up to XC2 for the final race, and even grabbed the holeshot! The 200-A class championship went to Tristan Landrum who had a great 2013 season grabbing 7 wins along the way. Tristan also impressed me at Unadilla when he approached the skyshot at a speed that seemed like he was just going to about halfway jump it, but at the last second he rolled on the throttle and hucked the HECK out of the thing and cleared it. Oh and did I mentioned that was on a 125? Pretty impressive.

I’ve mentioned prior that Trevor Bollinger had the 4-Stroke A Lites title wrapped up actually only lost one race in that class due to a mechanical problem. Joe Marsh claimed the Vet-A class title, while Phil Smith took Senior-A. In an impressive feat, BOTH of these riders made the jump to XC2 for the final two races at Powerline Park and Ironman. Pretty cool to see more “mature” riders give it a shot for a few races!

There’s still plenty more B, C and Youth classes to jump into but I’ll save those for the coming weeks. We’ve got a long winter ahead so I don’t want to talk about too much too soon! One little teaser I’ll give away, I took the time to tally up who would be the State Championship winners at the banquet. I don’t want to ruin the surprise in advance so I won’t give it away but I can say that the bike side has a different winner than last year, so that means all my local buddies here in North Carolina need to step it up for 2014!

As for some opportunities to do some racing this weekend, the SETRA Volunteer Hare Scramble is happening in Bybee, TN on Sunday. I rode this one last year and it’s a really fun mountain course with some awesome uphill and downhill sections. The only downside is that parking is a little tough, so for those who come out, be courteous when parking. www.setra.org will get you all the info.

Well, that’s pretty much all I have for this week. As always, if you have an idea for someone to be featured on Tuesday Toolbox or just have a cool story to share, drop me a line at [email protected]

Until next time, Bolt-On out!

Thanks, Jared. And here is @HotRodney22:

Since the 2013 AMSOIL Grand National Cross Country Awards Banquet has yet to happen I feel I have a full license to continue to talk about what without a doubt was one of the most epic of GNCC seasons in history. As it began in sunny Florida and rolled into Georgia at Aonia Pass it seemed as though we were off to a great start weather wise to the season, but it wasn’t long that we realized it didn’t matter where we were, the rains seemed to somehow affect the weekend racing from moderately to the extreme and amazingly we as GNCC Racin’ Nation took it in stride.

As each round of racing came and went, we stayed optimistic that “next race will be better” but it never seemed to come. However, the final two rounds, beginning with Ohio’s perfect conditions with a great mix of terrain that leant itself to being one of the highest attended Power Line Park GNCC events. Then in Indiana, we saw cold, rain and snow leading into the event and again we were blessed with perfect conditions. Was it our reward for the hardships and challenges that we faced with through the season? I am not sure, but whatever the reason it certainly made for a great number of bench racing stories that will most certainly be relived for years to come.

A personal glimpse back and I laugh at the mountains that I climbed personally and professionally throughout the season. One of the biggest personal issues I was faced with this season was the sound. I have no idea what made the system crash this season but it did and the funny thing was is that what had worked for the last 10 years (with updated equipment over that time) the system worked flawlessly. It would also work flawlessly right up until the start of the 1:00pm race. Being the announcer and soundman both it is hard to analyze such technical difficulties. Heck if you remember I even had to sing the National Anthem in Florida because the system crashed 3 amps right in a row and when I got it fixed, I had no way to play my music.

After a few rounds of pure agony, the powers that be hired a “professional” sound guy that I must say thanks to because it took a lot of the pressure off me. It went really bad there for a little bit (which made me look better…lol) but he redesigned a system that we spent the last four rounds of the season tweaking and delivered a sound quality to the GNCC that has never been known. Yes there were some meltdowns a couple of times, but all in all I deem it a huge success from when we started in Florida with me singing to when the crisp clean sound that engulfed the farm fields of the Ironman GNCC.

Another monumental achievement for me professionally was to see a two-hour ATV GNCC and a three-hour bike GNCC streamed live to the world through RacerTV.com. It was the first time in history this had been done. It gave us an opportunity to view GNCC like it has never been done. Remote live video feeds, coupled with recorded footage from some of the farthest points on the course brought together a spectacle that was witnessed by over 150 nations worldwide. And even better, it was in HD!

One can only expect this to only get better in the future. Imagine what a group of about six young men and women handed a task to do something had never been done anywhere by anyone like we were doing.  My hat is off to each one who played a role in the development throughout the season of GNCC Live on RacerTV.com. The Camera guys and editors like Gloop Mahey and Pryce Hardin and the entire crew that worked so hard to bring us the cool shots. However, they were two that made them all look good to have someplace to shoot those cool shots from. My hat is off also to Griffin Cotter and his buddy Blake who really took the bull by the horns and made the impossible, possible. Even the developer of the equipment we were using would scratch his head in amazement as to how these boys pulled it off. I do have to admit that there were a couple of times that it wasn’t until the very last possible moment, but they pulled it off nearly every time. My hat is off again to Griffin Cotter who would then join the GNCC Live crew in the Carmate Trailers Studio to help switch and co-direct the show.

Certainly there is a big hat tip and pat on the back to one of the most uptight people on the crew (except for Carrie Jo) but the glue that bonded it all together and that was our producer and director Jeremy Saylor. Jeremy has been involved in Racer TV since around 2005 and played a huge role in making it all work and though the only time he has ever thrown his leg over anything with a motor was to ride a quad to camera spots, he really followed the GNCC to its core.

Another that cannot go unmentioned is the outstanding work by Jen Kenyon. Jen, who is our Media Manager at Racer Productions, stepped up hugely by going live in front of the camera and never missing a beat. This may not seem too much of a big deal to many of you but keep in mind that she has never done anything like this or been trained to do it. She really shined in each moment and for someone to step completely out of their element and perform at that level was nothing short of amazing. Good job Jen and I am glad to work with you and see it all happen.

Thanks to Stu Baylor for being there each round to give his opinions and commentary that is truly priceless. I really hate that Stu had to sit out most of the season due to injury but I really don’t think it would have been as good without his input.