Thursday, November 21, 2013 | 4:30 PM
Welcome to Quick Fill.
It’s been a tough week in the racing world, as we lost three great sportsmen, family members and friends over the weekend.
On Friday, multi-time champion and Factory KTM rider Kurt Caselli died while competing in the Baja 1000 in Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico. According to KTM’s press release, Caselli “was in a leading position when he suffered a crash that resulted in severe multiple injuries and his subsequent death at the site of the accident.” There had been a lot of speculation about a so-called man-made booby trap that may have led Caselli to crash, but reports from KTM release this statement, “The team, who have now recovered Caselli's bike discovered traces on the machine that indicate he had collided with some animal, which apparently caused the crash.” While I didn’t personally know Kurt, so many folks within this industry were touched by his presence alone and people just didn’t have a bad thing to say about him. And from the sounds of it, anyone who came into contact with the fun-loving guy felt an impact in some way. Jason Weigandt wrote a wonderful tribute to the legacy of Kurt Caselli, which can be found on Racer X Online HERE. Also, for those of you on the West Coast, the Caselli family has invited all family, friends and fans of Kurt to attend his Memorial Ride Day on December 6 at Glen Helen Raceway from 10:00am to 3:00pm. More details can be found HERE.
It only got worse from there, as Saturday afternoon brought the death of two more loved ones within the racing community - one being Indiana’s Jay Poole, who passed away suddenly at the age of 52. The visitation for Jay is actually tonight from 4 to 8 p.m. Funeral Services will be held at 11 a.m. on Friday, Nov. 21, 2013, at Hendryx Mortuary 11636 East Washington St. Indianapolis. While looking through the Quad Zone forum, I noted one particular post from “GNCC Laeger 250” who wrote, “Jay raced GNCC for over 15 years until retiring around 2005 or so. I'm sure some of you old timers remember JJ’s burgundy Ford van. Jay was a great competitor and good guy. He will be missed by his family and friends. RIP Jay.”
Ryan Longstreth, who was a Brand Manager for CYCRA Racing for 18 years, was involved in a tragic accident on Saturday. According to a statement put out by Longstreth’s longtime employer, CYCRA, “He possessed a true passion for the sport of off-road racing and motocross, and truly loved the people in the industry. He touched many people over the years with his likeable personality and happy infectious smiles.” They also announced that the Harmony J. Longstreth and Morgan E. Longstreth Benefit Fund has been set up to help care for Ryan’s family, as he was the sole supporter, while his wife and daughter are both pursuing an education at Ohio State University. To make a contribution please contact Park National Bank 50N 3rd Street Newark, Ohio 43055 (Ph 740-349-8451). At a later date, details about a Memorial ride and auction to celebrate Ryan’s life will be announced. Ryan was 38 years old.
This all comes after the passing of Grady “Allen” Vest, father of GNCC ATV racer Kirkland Vest. Allen passed away on October 30 at Washington Hospital Center in Washington DC.
It is with an extremely heavy heart that I post the information above. While I didn’t personally know any of those guys, my heart still breaks in two for they all had family, friends and fans that lost a special part of their lives with the passing of their loved ones. The entire GNCC Racing community extends their heartfelt condolences to those folks. Godspeed, Allen, Kurt, Jay and Ryan.
Okay, so a few notes about tis weekend’s Awards Banquet. First off, if you haven’t reserved a table yet, PLEASE do so immediately. We’re actually to the point where we may not be able to seat people for dinner since the registration was supposed to close yesterday. We’ll make it work, but please do not wait until tomorrow or Saturday and just show up, because you may not have a place to sit.
If you can’t make it to the banquet and you want someone else to pick up your award, please email me [email protected] and let me know ahead of time otherwise we will not give your stuff away. Also, for those of you that are coming and you have an old plaque that you forgot to pick up, email me today or tomorrow morning and we will bring it with us. Rita is getting rid of all 2013 awards by January 1 so this is your last call for those things.
Next order of business is the rules meetings. We will have our annual rules meetings the day following each banquet, so ATVs on Saturday morning and Bikes on Sunday morning. The schedule is as follows: 8:30 a.m. Pro, 9 a.m. Amateur, 10 a.m. Youth and 10:30 a.m. UTV (Saturday only). If you aren’t going to make it or you want to send in your proposal ahead of time, please email [email protected] and we will have those things ready for the agenda.
We will once again have the photo booth running in the latter part of the evening, so be sure to bring your smiles and a little bit of goofiness! We’ll announce the exact times at the banquet and the best part…it’s FREE!
Everyone drive safely this weekend and we’ll see you all soon!
Here’s @JaredBolton:
We’ve blitzed through another week and now the banquet is officially upon us. Once again I’ve seen quite a few posts on various social media platforms with quite a few people talking about how excited they are for the banquet, as they should be. It’s a good opportunity to get together as racers, and kick back away from the track, honor your accomplishments from the season, and have a little fun as well. Not a bad way to spend a weekend!
By now, everyone has heard about the loss of Kurt Caselli during the Baja 1000 last week. I won’t go into continually bringing up old news, but I did want to take the opportunity to thank Kurt for his years of racing around the world. I never really got to know Kurt but did have a few interactions with him and he genuinely was exactly how he seemed, a down-to-earth, friendly, super cool guy that truly was one of the greatest all around riders to throw a leg over a motorcycle. GNCC, Enduro, Hare and Hound, WORCS, Baja, Dakar, even Pro Motocross, Kurt not only raced it, but he did well. See you down the trail, Kurt!
Now, onto some more upbeat news. Last week I mentioned the Silver Creek GP race in Morganton, NC. I headed out there the Friday before and helped put the finishing touches on marking the track, and rode sweep all day Saturday. The turnout was a bit low but I believe the threat of rain scared a lot of people off, which is a bummer because the woods were absolutely AWESOME and once the motocross track tacked up a little bit, it was great as well.
The race did see a really good pro turnout through. The first Pro 125 moto came first. Last week I mentioned a rider had just got a new 150SX, well, that was Chris Bach, who took the Pro 125 class win over local fast-guys TJ Snow and Chris Venditti who was also a top mini-standout in GNCC last season. As for the first Pro class moto, it was a pretty killer race. Grant Baylor jumped out with the holeshot but Charlie Mullins and Chris Bach were able to work their way by early. Grant settled into third with Trevor Bollinger in chase along with Trevor Barrett and Jesse Robinson. Then, Baylor would have a pretty hard crash on a downhill section, which allowed Bollinger to work his way into third. Mullins would end up having a tip-over too but would make a solid recovery to take the moto win.
However, the battle was for second place. Chris Bach had his 150SX absolutely tapped out going head-to-head with Trevor Bollinger. Bach had just picked up the 150 the Wednesday afternoon before the race, and Bollinger knows his way around the Silver Creek track as it’s literally his backyard. Bollinger would end up getting around Bach to take second in the first moto.
Moto 2 in the Pro 125 class was basically a carbon copy of moto 1 with Chris Bach jumping out front and taking the win over TJ Snow and Chris Venditti. Pro moto 2 was a similar story as well with Charlie Mullins out front to control the race while Chris Bach and Trevor Bollinger battled back and forth for second place. However, Bach turned it up a notch this time. He had obviously adjusted to the 150 pretty well, as he was able to hold off Bollinger for second. The 3-2 moto scores was good enough to give Bach the advantage in the final overall scores. In the end, Mullins would take the win over Bach and Bollinger while Trevor Barrett put in a solid ride to take fourth place ahead of Grant Baylor in fifth.
Moving on to some of the latest silly season rumors, well, it’s actually been a little quiet this week. Until last night! Offroad Viking tweeted that they had heard about some sort of Suzuki effort returning to GNCC Racing. Now, pro motocrosser Ryan Sipes actually said a while back that he wants to go GNCC Racing now that he’s retired from the moto world. Could this be Sipes’ ride?
Oh, and I believe people were a little mistaken on the photos of Chris Bach’s green numberplates that surfaced last Friday. Yes, Chris Bach has a 150SX 2-stroke. Yes, it has green number 3 plates on it. No, he’s not actually racing XC2. It was meant as more of a joke from the guys at Powersport Grafx where Bach bases his privateer effort out of, but judging by a few comments and “retweets” that some people believed it to be true. However, Bach is completely ineligible for XC2 as he’s finished in the top 10 overall points the past 2 years.
Well, that’s pretty much all I have for this week. Hope everyone has a great time at the banquet! Until next time, Bolt-On out!
Thanks, Bolton. We’ll pass the wand over to @HotRodney22:
As the season approaches its official end with the 2013 Amsoil GNCC Night of Champions this weekend, many of us are already looking toward 2014. Though there has not been a lot of news since the season only ended a month or so ago there is some things starting to trickle. I am hearing, “I will let everyone know after the banquet.
I am not sure what it is about this off season but it seems as though everyone is kind of looking forward and getting deals figured out early this offseason. Often we have had more time between the end of racing and the banquets and it always seemed everyone was still scrambling. This year though it is totally different. Though not everyone has their programs ready for next season, many have it all nearly locked down.
One thing I feel that has contributed to next season’s readiness is the fact that many may have just decided this season a wash early and started focusing on 2014. This focus on next year could be what leant itself to be one the best seasons to date. The weather dampened so many folk’s hopes early on in the year that they just let the pressure off themselves and it may have made for a better year in the end. No pressure at the races makes for better attitudes and better attitudes make the racing better because everyone is having fun. Even though I may completely miss the target with this theory, it may have been what helped make it so special for me.
As I mentioned before I haven’t heard a lot of stuff but I have heard some things. As you may have heard, the Baja 1000 was a great week for many of the GNCC Racin’ Nation. Congrats to Scott Kiger on his UTV win. That was just awesome to hear. As we all know and have heard how challenging the event is, it could not have been easy task to even finish let alone win.
Speaking of UTV racing, I had a chance to speak with Cindy Hart who is multi-time ATV Motocross Champion Digger Doug Gust’s publicity agent and she told me that it looks like we may be seeing a lot more of Digger Doug in 2014. If you recall and caught on RacerTV.com’s GNCCLive, Doug was on hand at the Ironman. He said he was there to race the Side-by-Side race later that day and it looks like he may have gotten hooked. As former ATVMX opponent Tim Farr took the win that day at the Ironman, Doug finished eighth overall after starting from the 12th row. Cindy said Doug is already putting his program together and getting ready to race the GNCC UTV series in 2014. It will be so exciting to see what the New Year will hold for Side-by-Side Racing.
4x4 Lites Champion Kevin Trantham is busy trying to finalize things for 2014 as we speak. He says that even though he won the championship this season in the competitive class he is working on something a little different. He said he will announce his plans after the banquet but he will still be riding a Can-Am. He also said “I'm pretty excited. I got a few new sponsors and am planning on going out west to do the Vegas to Reno race.” That sounds like lots of fun. I can remember when Utility ATV racing was kind of sideshow and now it is often times the main show and Kevin along with the many other GNCC pilots have made these classes as competitive as any GNCC class lining up on the starting line.
XC2 contender Josh Merritt is busy this off-season as well. It appears he may a few minor changes for next year and is already getting his training program underway. He said “I have been working a lot to get some new parts on the practice quad then I am going to start heading south after thanksgiving to start testing and riding for 2014. I'm trying out a new front end this year so we’re hoping it will get me to that next level where I need to be.” I believe for some reason that next level may be a little closer than he realizes. Next season will certainly be a barn-burning year from the racing standpoint in this class for sure.
I also spoke with the great folks at All Balls Racing who tell me that they are super pumped to be a part of the GNCC Racin’ Nation. They said that we should see a little more of All Balls next season. I asked what meant and I got the “more riders and MORE, MORE, MORE products for 2014.” That to me sounds good for some folks and I can’t wait to see what they have in store for the future.
And don’t forget to bring your dancing shoes and fun attitudes this weekend for after the awards, as Eddie Lojak will be spinning the tunes till late. Also be ready for the riders meetings each morning after your banquet. If you have anything you want to discuss or introduce for next year you want to be there.
That’s it for now. Till next time, God Bless Your Heart and All Your Vital Organs.