I just want to remind everyone that this year’s season opener in Florida is not only a different location (about 20 miles away from Daytona) but it also takes place on Saturday and Sunday, rather than the traditional Sunday/Tuesday schedule. ATVs will race on Saturday and dirt bikes will race on Sunday so please spread the word! Also, there will be practice on Friday and Saturday as follows: on Friday from 1-3 p.m. is ATV Amateur and PM practice, 3-4 p.m. is ATV Pro/PM practice and on Saturday from 1-3 p.m. is bike Amateur and PM practice, 3-4 p.m. is bike Pro/PM practice.

Another thing worth mentioning, we had a scheduling conflict after publishing the 2014 schedule. Basically, the weekend we had scheduled for the Limestone 100 ended up being the same weekend as Indiana University’s graduation. This became a HUGE problem when we realized that the community is not able to accommodate both events in the same weekend as the hotels were already booked full. As a result, Rounds 5 and 6 will swap places and the schedule will be as follows: the Limestone 100 in Springville, Ind. will become Round 5 and will take place on April 26 and 27, while Loretta Lynn’s will serve as Round 6, taking place May 10 and 11 in Hurricane Mills, Tenn. Please mark that on your calendars if you haven’t done so already.

This week has been pretty fun and exciting inside the Racer Productions/RacerTV HQ. The RacerTV crew set up all the equipment used for GNCC Live to do some testing for next season. They began tapping into some pretty cool features that we’re now working to find uses for in the future. Our hopes are to put together a few off-season productions to keep content flowing for all of you GNCC Racing junkies that are looking for your next fix. So stay tuned for something soon! If anything, we’re going to put out a fake news cast about a bunch of stuff that you don’t really need to know or care about.

Speaking of off-season. We’re hoping to announce the newest addition to GNCC Pro Row in the coming weeks. As teams continue to form and riders find their place for 2014, we have learned of a brand new addition that will come on the bike side of things. We don’t know 100% who the rider is going to be but I’ll let your imagination run wild and think about who is currently snagged up and who has yet to announce their plans. Either way, it’s going to be an exciting addition and we’re looking forward to announcing the details.

Before I go, we need help from our GNCC Racing Family. Our GNCC record book is incomplete. Back in the 80’s, there was a time when other promoters hosted GNCC events and sometimes it was not easy to get results, especially since this was way before Internet and even fax machines. So as a result, our record book is missing a few results. This is really important, especially since 2014 could be the year Chris Borich breaks the all-time record for most GNCC wins ever! Borich is currently tied with 9-Time ATV Champ Bill Ballance with 67 total ATV wins, which is one win behind Barry Hawk, who boasts a total 68 combined wins (Bike and ATV).

So, we are asking our GNCC Racing Family to do a little sleuthing and help us locate the results to these events:

April 19, 1986 / ATV: Shasta Dam, Redding, Calif.

July 13, 1986 / ATV: Thurston ORV Park, McCleary, Wash.

April 26, 1987 / ATV: Shasta Dam, Redding, Calif.

Oct 10, 1987 / ATV: Devils Ridge, Raleigh, N.C.

Oct 11, 1987 / Bike: Devils Ridge, Raleigh, N.C.

@JaredBolton:

It already seems like time is ticking by in 2014 and it won’t be long before we’re back into the swing of things. Well, we’ve still got a bit of a break left but we’ve crested that “Holiday Hill” and now we’ve got all the momentum heading down the other side towards the 2014 GNCC Racing season. And what a season it has the potential to be! It really seems the past several years have seen some of the best GNCC action in quite some time. Of course, that’s what’s always great about GNCC Racing, is you never really know exactly could happen.

While temperatures have been incredibly frigid, we have reached that point where we’re starting to see a good bit of off-season racing. Last Saturday, I put on the Zoo City GP at Zoo City MX in Asheboro, NC. Well, I believe the cold weather scared a lot of people off and the ones who did come out and race experienced some super slick conditions with the ground being frozen for a good portion of the day. I really hate that the conditions couldn’t have been better but it seems like everyone really enjoyed the layout, so that’s a plus.

Charlie Mullins walked away with both moto wins in the Pro 125 class (yes, he came out and raced on his 125). In the first Pro moto, he started way behind and caught back up to the battle for the lead between Takeshi Koikeda and Trevor Connell. Takeshi would end up holding Trevor off for the win with Charlie closing up to Trevor’s rear wheel coming into the final sections of the race. However, Charlie ran out of time and Trevor was able to put the hammer down and hold him off at the finish. Moto 2 was a little different as Charlie went into “Checkout Charlie” mode and walked away with the win over Takeshi and Trevor. However, it would be Takeshi Koikeda taking the overall win with a 1-2 versus Charlie’s 3-1.

A little further south in Georgia was the second round of the SORCS Winter Series on Sunday. Steward Baylor came away with the overall win on the bikes, while the quad race saw a pretty stacked field of competition. Kevin Yoho snagged the overall win ahead of Brian Wolf, Landon Wolfe, Josh Merritt, and Michael Mcavoy aka: Baby Mac.

The coming weeks have plenty of chances to do some off-season racing with multiple hare scramble and enduro events happening across the southeast, which will serve as great pre-cursors to both the GNCC and National Enduro seasons. I’ve mentioned it before but two of the big ones come back to back just a mile or so apart with the Burnt Gin Hare Scramble happening on January 26^th, and the Sumter Enduro on February 2^nd. Many bike riders are familiar with both of these events as they both draw excellent turnouts. You can keep up to date on everything at www.sermaclub.com.

Also, one piece of racing news that came out this week is that JDay Offroad has moved their Bostwick event in Florida from Saturday to Tuesday. So, for bike guys, that means that you can race the new Mud Mucker GNCC on Sunday, have a break, race the JDay event on Tuesday, and then race The General GNCC on Sunday. It’s unfortunate that the folks with The Alligator Enduro couldn’t work it out to return their event to Thursday because you could end up with a full week of racing, and make it Off-Road Week instead of Bike Week.

Well, that’s kind of all I have for this week, and anything else, I’ll save for another week of the off-season. Until next time, Bolt-On out!

Thanks Jared. And last but certainly not least is Rodney Tomblin.

@HotRodney22:

Here we go for our second look into the new year and everything seems to be going great for most folks around the GNCC Racin’ Nation. At least most of the reports I am getting are positive and the few reports that are “not so good” haven’t been all so bad, so I take that as a positive.

I have been able to communicate with a few folks over the last couple of days and it seems like everyone is of the same mind set. Work! Work! W-O-R-K, Work! Testing, tuning and trying new things are what this time is all about. Physical conditioning is something that also a big part of this time of year. Gone are the days of racing into shape and expecting to be a contender. You must be doing something constructive right now or you may fall behind.

I spoke with Mike Walsh from Walsh Race Craft who is a huge innovator in the ATV racing world. He told me that he has been working with 2-Time and Defending AMA Pro ATV Motocross Champion Chad Wienen who has been training and working some with some of the GNCC crowd. 5-Time and Defending GNCC ATV Champion Chris Borich was reported to be there along with Johnny G and a host of other top GNCCer’s getting things dialed in for the season. It is good to see these guys working together like that and shows how tight knit the ATV racing world can be.

Walsh also told me they were going to do a little branching out as far as trackside support was concerned and that we will be seeing him and the Walsh Race Craft support truck at a few GNCC events this season. Mike said that he wasn’t expecting to make a huge impact as far as presence goes but that they wanted to at least be able to service customers and support their components and services to the best of their abilities. What that means to me is….Welcome to the GNCC Racin’ Nation Mike Walsh. We hope you find a place you can call a second home for you in the racing world.

I told you last week that I had spoken with Walker Fowler and he tells me this week that the 2014 preview race may have taken place this past weekend at the opening round of the FTR and a host of GNCC racers were there. Walker told me he got the holeshot, which we all know was something of a rarity up until recently. Fowler had a 16-second lead over the field at the end of lap one. Shortly into lap 2 he was held by a crashed lapper, which allowed the field to catch back up. McGill pulled into a close second and Walker said, “We clicked off a good lap wheel to wheel and I got arm pump so bad I waved him on by and thought following may help it go away. Wrong! (Laughs) We stayed sort of close on lap 3, and on the beginning of lap 4 he pitted and I opted to go another lap before pitting. He pulled out right as I went by but got the lead back, wheel to wheel until almost the end of the lap and had another incident with a lapped rider where it was either I crash the lapped rider and myself or hit a pretty large fence post. I chose the post, and it stopped me dead. I didn't crash but bent it over and the quad was hung up on it right in a deep berm. I wasted a good amount of time and energy getting back on track and then I had to pit.”

Walker had also sent me this note last week telling me what he was up to so I thought I would share it as it gives us some pretty good insight as to what’s going on.

I took almost all of December off from riding except a few real nice days I couldn't pass up and did a race with a good friend of mine, Shane Organ, in the bitter cold. It was his first race ever and we had a blast! He finished third in the Beginner Class out of 7 and came home with a plaque on the first try! I rode with him all race to make sure everything went smoothly and I haven't gotten to relax at a race in a long time!

I made it to Okeechobee, FL on Dec. 29th to start training again. We are staying with a great friend and Owner of D4 Powersports, Derek Tremain. I can't thank him and his Wife enough for taking my girlfriend Becca Sheets and I under his roof and let us park all the machines and parts in his shop. He helps keep all the machines rolling while I'm down here.

Last weekend was the first FTR race weekend (Jan.4-5) so most of the big names were there and pumped to get back on the track with everyone. My new teammate for 2014 is Cole Richardson and he is flying down as much as he can as he finishes up high school while he pursues the 2014 XC2 title. It is going to be a fun year having a teammate again and even better we live close so we will be able to train and push each other this season.

While down here we are testing some new engine packages developed by Toby Reed and Moto-Xperts to find that edge we need to get ahead of that Yellow machine. We are also testing the new Generation 3 Fox Suspension so I am always looking forward to all the new parts arriving! (Anything to get that edge haha).

I am working and focusing a lot of energy to be in better physical condition. I always seem to start the season a little out of shape and by round 5-6 I finally get to where I feel comfortable. To have a shot at the championship I have to be a contender at all 13 rounds and not just 7 or 8.

Every season we are learning more and more which is almost as fun as the racing. This will only be our second season as the Am-Pro Yamaha name and I couldn't be more thrilled or confident with where we are at! Randy Hawkins is a great leader and friend and that just makes my job that much easier.

Thanks to Walker for the lowdown and good luck to everyone who is working hard this pre-season to be the best you can be in this new era of GNCC.

Also on a personal note, I am looking forward to traveling to and assisting at this year’s WYNOA Banquet. I want to say thanks to them for inviting me and I am looking forward to making it up there in a couple of weeks.

That’s it for now. Till next time, God Bless Your Heart and All Your Vital Organs.