I know for me, the journey continues throughout the summer via the Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship and the Amateur Motocross National at Loretta Lynn’s. Between those two properties, most of our crew will be busy with some form of racing from now until September. Literally, we do not have a weekend off until Labor Day weekend! But like I said, if we weren’t working at the races we would probably still be at the races so it’s not a bad deal either way. This weekend it’s all about motocross, as some of us are at Muddy Creek Raceway for the 2nd Annual Tennessee National, while others (like Barry Hawk, Jeff Russell and Miss Rita) are at High Point for the Loretta Lynn’s Regional Championship. From the sounds of it, we will most likely see many of our GNCC Racin’ Nation at both places. In fact, as I stepped out of the car this morning at Muddy Creek the first people I saw were Ricky and Lynn Towery! If you’re at the race on Saturday, be sure to say hi to those folks up at the front gate. And if you’re in the pits, stop over to the Media Center and say hello to me!

I know guys like Westley Wolfe and Jordan Digby will be headed to Spring Creek in Millville, Minnesota this weekend for the ATV Motocross National. Both of those guys travel the entire National circuit for both the MX and GNCC series, which has to be pretty gnarly but also amazing cross-training to be racing the top talent in both disciplines. Westley currently sits second in the Schoolboy Jr Open Class on the MX side, and third place in the Schoolboy A/B division in GNCC. Jordan Digby, who landed atop the Youth overall podium for the second time at Snowshoe, sits third in the 125 Sr Class in GNCC and it looks like he’s had a little bad luck on the MX side with some finishes outside of the top ten.

I talked to current Youth bike leader Cole Mattison at Snowshoe and he said he qualified for the Loretta Lynn’s Amateur Motocross National recently, which is a huge accomplishment! It will be fun to watch Cole throw down on the moto track all week long, especially with the show he gave at the Loretta’s GNCC last month. If any other GNCC Racers have qualified for Loretta’s MX, please send me an email and let me know the rider name and what class so we can keep folks filled in during the week!

It sounds like the Side-by-Side guys have a ton of racing going on this summer as well. Scott Kiger, William Yokley and the Coastal Drilling/National Guard/Polaris crew is planning on heading west quite a bit to do some desert racing and I think guys like Bryan Buckhannon and even Michael Swift are doing the same. We definitely want to hear about all of that too, if anyone out there happens to have information. Feel free to write up a quick report and we’ll get it posted up on the GNCC website. You can email [email protected] and [email protected] for that.

The voting process has begun for Yamaha’s All-American ATV Racer contest, where one GNCC Racer will win a new YFZ450R, paid gate and race entry fees for the 2015 GNCC season, a Yamaha Pit Kit: Yamaha Racing pop-up, quad stand and pit jacket, Yamaha EF2000iS generator, Yamaha pressure washer and a GYTR gift certificate for $1,000.

The deadline to submit nominees was yesterday and the voting begins today! There are tons of good candidates and you have until October 27 to cast your vote. The winner will be announced at this year’s GNCC Banquet in Morgantown. In order to vote, all you need to do is visit Yamaha Motor USA’s Facebook page, and click the All-American ATV Racer app. Or you can click HERE.

If you haven't checked it out yet, head over to RacerTV.com and watch the first episode of The Racer X Show with Greg White presented by Chaparral. It's got highlights from the GNCC XC1 and XC2 races, both bike and ATV, as well as Pro Motocross, ATV Motocross, Flat Track racing and more. It's a pretty cool summary of everything that went down the previous week in the world of racing, so check it out HERE. And don't forget you can watch any of the past GNCC Live shows online at your own convenience as they are all archived on RacerTV.com.

I’m sure there’s so much that I’m forgetting to include this week, but hey, we’ve got nothing but time! Two months to be exact, but I’m not counting. I hope everyone has a great weekend doing whatever it is that makes you happy. Here’s Bolt-On.

@JaredBolton:

Well the summer break is here! Everyone has been spending the week cleaning up, resting up, and fixing everything from Snowshoe and before you know it, we’re all going to be hungry for some more racing. Snowshoe is always the perfect way to cap off the opening part of the season. You’ve got one of the most perfect settings for a race, in a very unique place, where everyone can get together in the evenings and hang out with each other, then you’ve got a long, grueling race to start the summer break. To me, it doesn’t get much better than that.

And what a race it was! There was definitely no shortage of challenging terrain for everyone. I said in last week’s QuickFill that the track was tough, and I mentioned the downhill sections I didn’t want to go down again. Well, I went down them again, and they were still just as tough. I actually felt a lot better about it when guys like Mike Holbert from RacerTV and even Barry Hawk himself said that downhill I mentioned was tough. Of course, that’s what Snowshoe is all about!

As for the actual racing, I think most everyone expected Kailub Russell to come away with the win and that he did. I mentioned it a while back that there was a time where people associated KR with being a faster, most wide open terrain type rider. However, in the past couple seasons Kailub has become one of the most well rounded riders in the XC1 class, and has really began to excel at the tough, technical terrain too. It’s a good example of how everyone progresses. Even once you get to that top level, there’s still room to improve and progress even further.

We as racers tend to get down on ourselves when things don’t go our way. Personally, I only get to race a handful of various races each year, so I’m there just to have fun. However, I still find myself getting caught up in the moment and wanting to do good (but I’m slow, so that doesn’t usually work out) and when bad luck strikes, I immediately start picking at it trying to figure out where I went wrong. I know many of you are the exact same way, but my point here is, there’s always room for improvement and progression, so don’t be too hard on yourself. While not all of us will make it to that top level, we’re still here because we love this and don’t ever forget that!

Going back to the racing at Snowshoe, Jordan Ashburn put in a stellar ride as well to take 2^nd place. Ashburn has been putting his best season ever so far and it’s great to see him up there. Andrew Delong also finally got his first podium of the season. Delong was definitely pretty pumped to finally land on the box like he’s been wanting to do all season. The XC2 boys had a pretty good race as well with Grant Baylor snagging the win with Trevor Bollinger and Nick Davis both making their way onto the podium. That did shake up the XC2 points battle too. Ricky Russell was able to salvage a 5^th place finish, but that opened up some breathing room for Grant Baylor in the XC2 points.

So now heading into the summer break, Kailub Russell is in a pretty comfortable position in the overall point standings while Charlie Mullins actually still holds onto the 2^nd place spot but depending on Charlie’s healing time and when he’s back racing, Josh Strang can move into that 2^nd place position. However, the battle for the championship still isn’t over. If there’s one thing we all know about GNCC Racing, it’s that anything can happen and it’s never over until someone has it fully wrapped up. 

That’s just part of the magic of GNCC. With these long, grueling races, it tests both man and machine so you never know what might happen when you head out into those woods. You could have the best ride of your life one weekend, and the next weekend you may never make it past the one-mile mark. There’s no other sport in the world that is quite like ours, and never forget that! 

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

@HotRodney22:
Last week in my QF contribution I mentioned occurrences over the years that I had deemed “Wow!” moments over the history of the Snowshoe GNCC. I am a little stunned after this past weekend’s events as I said it as much this one-year as I did in all the years combined from the past. I am not sure why. I don’t know if I happened to be a little more in tune this year or if there really was something more and special about this year’s Amsoil Snowshoe GNCC.

Friday started out great as my new live event co-announcer “Mega Watt” Matt Watson had spent a little time the day before setting towers so my normal routine of sound set up was already rolling when I stepped in. Wow! That was a great feeling because I knew the challenges sound wise I had ahead. Mostly because of a lot of frequency interference from being in area that you catch nearly every kind of interference known to engineering on top of that mountain and unfortunately I am not an engineer. So I have to rely on years of experience and trial and error to get it remotely right. So if you heard some interference in the PA this week, be thankful you actually heard anything. But seriously, it did take all day and had Mega Watt not done what he had, I would have missed my first big “Wow!” moment of the weekend.

On Friday evening right about the time things were considered good to go on the sound system I boarded a shuttle bus to take a ride to the bottom of the mountain to the Boat House Restaurant for the wedding of Ms. Jerri Headlee the Racer accountant. The ceremony was performed by GNCC Pastor Chuck LeMaster from Team Faith Ministries and was attended by close family and friends in the GNCC Racin’ Nation. It was without a doubt a beautiful ceremony and an honor to be invited. And as far “Wow!” goes at the wedding, the black cupcake icing left its mark for days. (Literally)

Waking up on Saturday morning “Wow!” it was foggy! A very heavy fog and rain puddles from the night before made for a feeling that everyone knew that the day was going to live up to its claim as “America’s New Toughest Race”.  I heard the call on the radio around 6:15 am while out firing up the Yamaha generators, which power our sound systems. “All systems go!” said Trail Boss Jeff Russell to operations man Tim Cotter. Though you couldn’t see 30 feet in front of you, you could tell it was going to be a good day.

As the day progressed it seemed like the fog would never lift from the top of the mountain but about 1:00 pm race time it finally had. Talking with the riders for the ITP Pre-Race Report from VP Fuels Pro Row there was calm before the storm. Each rider seemed to be in a whole different place, quietly confident with a mix of anxiety as to what was in store. Chris Borich the defending champ was not claiming wins but survival. Walker Fowler was not claiming wins but said surviving was the key saying, “I could be 38 points behind as quick as I was 8 points behind”. Adam McGill was as confident as ever but you could tell that even he had respect for Snowshoe and its unpredictability. Of course Brian Wolf had the same mindset as every time he lined up. He came to win at all costs and it was break or win. Only thing is he didn’t break and he didn’t win, but he leading on adjusted time and backed it down too much on the last lap and McGill slipped away for the win.

In the afternoon race there were several “Wow!” moments. They are in no particular order like this:

Walker Fowler while leading found himself out with a busted chain, which caused a lot more problems. As if that weren’t enough it wasn’t from riding crazily through some of the roughest terrain they have raced since last year’s Snowshoe GNCC. It was while riding a smooth “golf cart” path when a stray rock lying on the paved pathway flipped up from his front tire and snapped his chain. I mean “Wow!” that was crazy and to think he had mentioned something off the wall happening and not scoring points only a couple of hours before. The good news for him was that Chris Borich didn’t win the overall so not a total of 30 points were lost but Fowler now sits 24 points behind Chris Borich in the overall but the even worse news is that with the win Adam McGill pulled to within 5 points of Fowler and is only 29 points behind Borich. One has to think this has been the tightest the ATV championship has been at this point in the season since Borich’s reign began. “Wow!” Things just got very interesting.

How about a “Wow!” for Adam McGill? Adam is the only natural born West Virginian to win the XC1 Pro class and overall at Snowshoe. He took the ATV win there this weekend and ironically the snow globe trophy he was awarded had a red quad with the number 3 on it. He sits 3^rd in points and it was his 3^rd win at Snowshoe which made him the only ATV rider to achieve this and shares this honor with the great David Knight who also has done it in the motorcycle racing side of things. “Wow!”

And one may think that would be the end of “Wow!” for that Saturday but it wasn’t. That evening Snowshoe Village hosted a “Times Square” type celebration that brought out what seemed like thousands of race goers. Kailub Russell was presented his championship ring from 2013 and even after that Kailub said “Wow! That was the biggest and wildest crowd I have ever received anything in front of before.” In my opinion it was kind of a “rock star feeling” standing on that stage in front of that crowd.