Welcome to Quick Fill.

The productivity level is at an all time high here in the Morgantown office as we continue to gear up for the Awards Banquet that takes place one week from tomorrow right here at the Waterfront Place Hotel. If you haven’t reserved a table or a room, please do that now so you can be guaranteed a place to sit. Everything can be done online and you can find more details HERE.

Speaking of Morgantown, if you live anywhere in the area you should definitely check out the Moto 5 The Movie premiere tomorrow night at the Met Theatre in downtown Morgantown. Doors open at 7 p.m. and the show starts at 7:30 p.m. You can purchase tickets ahead of time online or you can buy them at the door but there are a max number of seats so you’ll probably be taking your chances at the door. They’ll will be holding a raffle full of merchandise from our sponsors such as KTM, GoPro, RacerX, DVS Shoes, & Motosport Outlet. They will also be raffling off a brand new KTM 250SXf! Hope to see you all there!

So the 43rd Baja 1000 starts tonight at 11PM PST in the dunes of Ensenada, Mexico. Taken from the website jalopnik.com, “This year's race sends motorcycles, ATVs, "cars", trophy trucks, and buggies blasting round an ~883 mile loop wrought with bumps, jumps, wandering animals, and other dangers that make this event tremendously perilous and terribly exciting.” That…sounds…awesome!

Well, GNCC-ers Michael Swift (#207A), Mike Penland (#210A) and Don Higbee (#222A) will be competing in class #26 for the Team UXC Racing squad and you can follow along with their progress by clicking on the link HERE for live timing and scoring. It sounds like things get pretty interesting across the border so we’ll keep checking in with those guys to see how it’s all shaking down.

I’m going to pass it along to Bolt-On, so he can fill you in on the silly season rumors we’ve heard so far.

Here’s @JaredBolton:

Now that we’re knee deep in the off-season (I say knee deep because it’s still just getting started… January it gets about neck deep) the next thing to look forward to is the banquet. Now, this has already been discussed so I’ll save everyone the agony of reiterating what’s already been said but the time is fast approaching and judging by various social media posts, there’s a lot of excitement leading up to it, so it’s definitely going to be a good time.

What’s possibly even more exciting online right now are the various silly season rumors. Hoop did an awesome job compiling a bunch of the various rumors going around. Disclaimer: in no way, shape, or form does he say any of this is 100% true but if you want to read his full post, you can do so HERE.

Some of the highlights of that post include a lot of rumors I’ve heard recently as well. One of the big ones was dropped by Motocross Action Magazine prior to Hooper’s post, and it’s that Mike Brown will be exchanging his spot on the KTM team for a spot on the Factory Husqvarna team. Now, for those who may have missed the memo, the president of KTM (not KTMUSA, the actual corporate KTM in Austria) bought Husqvarna through his personally owned company and merged the brand with Husaberg. There was a lot of speculation about what would happen with the bikes but for the time being, there’s not a huge amount of changes. The biggest and most noticeable is that Husaberg is now called Husqvarna.

So, that creates a Factory Husqvarna team but where does it leave Fred Andrews Racing? Nobody seems to have an exact answer on that at the moment. Anyway, back to the Brownie on Husky thing. I heard through the grapevine that Brownie would ride the Husky in order to trade racing Baja for racing GNCC. He’s said for several years that he wants to make a go of it in GNCC and he’s had several good results at the rounds he’s raced before. One tough part to that for Brownie is that there’s 2 EnduroCross rounds scheduled on Saturday nights prior to a GNCC. This hasn’t really been an issue before (other than David Knight having it happen back in 2007) because the guys racing EnduroCross are primarily west coast riders or EnduroCross specialists.

As for the rest of the Husky team, Russell Bobbitt will remain in his spot that is leftover from the Factory Husaberg team. Andrew DeLong would be a natural choice but as stated in Hooper’s post, nothing is definite there yet. Now, it gets a little interesting. I was told that the Husky effort would be a four-rider team. So, Brownie, Bobbitt, DeLong, and? Who? You tell me. Maybe it will end up staying a three-rider team but if the four rider rumor is true, who gets the fourth spot? Mike Lafferty is back on a KTM for 2014, and Nick Fahringer will stick with the AirGroup Radient team, so it’s not them. Hmmm….

The other highlight is the possible return of Cory Buttrick aboard a Sherco. Cory has had a couple of rough years after injuring his knee in 2012 then just as it was almost healed, it happened again which was basically like starting all over again and sidelined him for the entire 2013 season. Hopefully we see Cory back in 2014 and I think it would be cool to see him aboard that blue bike that isn’t a Yamaha or Husky/Berg.

Supposedly Cory has been riding the Sherco 300 4-stroke. Now, for anyone who doesn’t know much about those bikes, they’re made in Spain and originally come from a trials background. Many people have a misconception about the smaller European brands like Sherco, GasGas, Beta, etc as being “weird” or some believe them to be unreliable but just like anything else, you have to know or learn how to make them work. They’re not like Japanese bikes so you have to work on them a little bit different to get them set up right. Now, I’ve had the chance to ride the Sherco 300i and I was pleasantly surprised with the power. It didn’t feel like a 250F with a big bore kit. It was more like the KTM 350. All in all, it’s a very nice motorcycle and if Cory is back racing on one, hopefully he has some good luck with it.

Now, onto some racing this weekend. In Morganton, NC on the opposite side of town from Steele Creek, there’s a GP race going on at Silver Creek MX on Saturday. Steele Creek, Silver Creek, Morganton North Carolina. There seems to be a pattern here (however, Silver Creek has been hosting races for MANY more years than Steele Creek although it took a few years off in the past 6-7 years) It sounds like it’s going to draw a pretty good turnout and there’s also a pretty good Pro purse with $1000 going to the winner and also a 100% payback in the Pro 125 class. Charlie Mullins was out for their motocross practice day last Saturday, and when I posted the flier on Instagram the other day, Zach Osborne commented saying “hmmm… may have to check that out.” And I’ve also heard of another superfast guy who just picked up a new 2-stroke to play around with. Could be interesting. More details HERE.

Then if you feel up to the task of pulling a double duty weekend, there’s a team race in Wilkesboro, North Carolina as well. It’s about 15 minutes from my house, so if anyone ends up coming and needs a place to stay…. I’ll tell you what hotels to look at! They’ll be racing quads for 4 hours on Saturday and bikes for 6 hours on Sunday. The flier has a few classes missing. They’re also adding “Team B” and “Team A” classes for both races. You can get more info HERE.

Well, that’s all I’ve got for this week. Until next time, Bolt-On out!

@HotRodney22:

Only a little more than a week away from the final event of 2013 as the Amsoil GNCC Night of Champions plans get their final touches and everyone anticipates the opportunity to celebrate the season as well as finally turn our attentions toward 2014.

What will the new season hold for the GNCC Racin’ Nation? As many questions that were answered for the 2013 championships, it left only more uncertainty for the upcoming 2014 season. The cool thing about the banquet is the fact that many of the cats are finally let out the bag. Like the announcement of Chris Borich making the switch to another yellow machine next year?! No I haven’t heard that but it doesn’t mean that some earth shattering news like that isn’t far from reality. I know Chris said on the podium at Ironman that he was moving ahead with his program for 2014 because “No one seems to want to hire the #1 plate.” It’s really too bad for Chris to have to do everything on his own, but it only lends to the lore of the title Chris will soon own as one the greatest GNCC racers of all time.

Like I said last week, the banquet hasn’t come yet so I feel inclined to focus on what just happened as far as 2013. One thing I haven’t mentioned yet to many folks is what I witnessed that Sunday night after the Ironman GNCC.

Like many of the crew of GNCC, my job isn’t done at the checker flag. Many of us have to stick around and clean up, pack up and get ready to roll. I realize we all do this racers and workers alike but what I will say may have surprised me more than anything was the KTM pits as darkness fell after the championship finale and Kailub Russell’s first few moments as GNCC Champion.

I am sure like many of you when I imagine winning something so monumental like a GNCC title that I had worked my entire life to achieve, there is going to be a party. No let me say, there is going to be a HUGE PARTY! And as I scurried around packing up speakers and such as the sun set, I noticed that Kailub’s party was in full swing. The funny thing is that it was the weekly KTM Clean up Party. Kailub along with a couple mechanics, the truck driver and some of his family were loading up the KTM Transporter and it looked nothing like a championship moment that I had ever imagined.

It was then that I realized why Kailub is a champion of GNCC and I am not. It is because there is a time to work and a time to play. Kailub’s job wasn’t done. The truck wasn’t loaded and he stuck it out to the bitter end. Would I have done that? Would you have done that? I would think he would say, “Not me, fella’s, that’s your job. I win the races and give you a reason to even have a job.”  Not that Kailub is like that by any stretch of the imagination, but it would be hard to not want to at least just let your hair down once and take a mulligan after what he had gone through the last two seasons.

I remember somewhere near the midway point of the season I asked Kailub what it was that put him on a different level than everyone at the moment. He said “Talent. It’s all talent. I wake up and just know what I want to do and work to go make it happen.” Kailub wasn’t meaning that to sound arrogant or cocky even if it did. Even if it did come across like that, can you tell me a better answer? Because I sure cannot even come close to an answer that could be more right.

Even though it may have sounded like he was extremely full of himself he wasn’t. He was stating the fact that he works so hard and trains so hard toward that goal of winning that it just seems to come so naturally. What seems like it would be so hard to do on Sunday seems so easy for Kailub because he has worked so hard leading up to that point that he doesn’t have to think about it come race time. It is part of his DNA at that point and all the hard work, determination, hunger and desire spew from his essence as talent and it seems so effortless that “talent” is the only way to describe it.

Our 2013 AMSOIL GNCC Bike Champion is also one that is hard to get to know on a personal level but this season I feel he came out of his shell. Kailub was featured by his premier sponsor Motosport.com in a serie,s which followed his every move through the season right down the championship. The series can be watched on YouTube.com and is entitled “Driven to Win”. Search that and maybe throw in Kailub’s name if you have trouble. It is a must see for any off road fan and it really gets to the heart of a champion becoming a champion. It chronicles the whole season from one rider’s perspective as he works to live his dreams to their fullest.  Congrats to Kailub Russell and keep that “Talent Train” rolling as the next few seasons will be as epic as what we just witnessed and keeping that #1 plate will be a story all by itself.

Thanks to all of the GNCC Racin’ Nation for giving me one of the best years of my life! Till next time, God Bless Your Heart and All Your Vital Organs.