A look back at Powerline Park (Jared Bolton)

Since it's addition to the series in 2001, Powerline Park has become a pretty popular stop on the tour for racers and fans alike. The fast terrain and spectacular mud holes is just part of what makes Powerline so special. The mud holes can occasionally resemble the days of Blackwater as the mud fleas come out in full force to give you a hand when things go wrong.

In the past few years of racing at Powerline Park, Paul Whibley claimed the overall win in 2008 and 2010. Josh Strang took the 2009 win, while Charlie Mullins snagged the honors in 2013. Kailub Russell took his first ever GNCC overall win at Powerline Park in 2011 and backed that up with another win at Powerline in 2012. It's pretty hard to pick a clear favorite for this year's Powerline Park win. With KR racing aboard a 150XC 2-stroke, he'll be at a slight disadvantage. Especially in the slick Ohio clay where the 4-stroke machines find much better traction. 

It's definitely not impossible; however, guys like Jordan Ashburn, Josh Strang, Andrew Delong, Thad Duvall and Chris Bach are all hungry to make their way back to the front and will most definitely want to snag a win of their own. While they've all been on the podium their fair share of times, Bach, Delong and Ashburn have all never claimed an overall win. They've come close, but just haven't been able to seal the deal yet. 

The one thing to remember about GNCC Racing though, anything can and will happen. Crazier things have happened and even almost unknown riders have claimed overall wins on more than one occasion. 

The Road to ATV History (Rodney Tomblin)

The one thing that is on my mind heading into this weekend’s Powerline Park GNCC is the obvious. It’s the GNCC ATV Championship Title. Over the past two weeks many thoughts have run through my mind. The one thing that seems to be sticking out the most to me is the fact that regardless what goes on in the next two rounds, we are witnessing history. Believe me, I know there are many things that could happen and the “wind of change” could blow back the other way. Chris Borich is hoping for it to blow back in his favor while Walker Fowler is currently full sail out riding the wind.

An XC1 mix up in the making (Jared Bolton)

One addition to the XC1 line this weekend will be Aussie superstar, Daniel Milner. Milner has gained fame as part of Team Australia at the ISDE claiming the overall win in his class last year. He's coming over full-time in 2015 to contest both the GNCC and National Enduro schedules with the Am-Pro Yamaha team. 

There's no doubt that Milner is absolutely blazing fast and could potentially be a threat. However, GNCC Racing is a bit different than the shorter sprint races that he's used to. I believe he'll adjust pretty quickly though. He had pretty good ride at last weekend's Mid-East Hare Scramble in South Carolina where he took 3rd overall behind Josh Strang and Charlie Mullins. 

It'll definitely be interesting to keep an eye on him and he very well could mix things up. I'd expect to see him running at the front of the pack for some of the race, and definitely worth keeping an eye on at The Ironman after using Powerline as somewhat of an "adjustment" race. 

WXC Winners List (Jared Bolton)

Trivia question: Since 2010, how many different winners has the WXC class had? Answer: Only 7. Maria Forsberg, Kacy Martinez, Jessica Patterson, Mandi Mastin, Ashley Crouch, Hannah Otto and Sarah Baldwin have been the only riders to claim WXC class wins in the past 5 seasons. 

There's been quite a number of other riders make their way onto the podium in that time but only 7 in 5 seasons have claimed wins. This year's WXC championship is already wrapped up with the honors going to Kacy Martinez, however, at Mountain Ridge, Sarah Baldwin became only the 2nd rider this season to beat Martinez. The other was Jessica Patterson who took the win at Big Buck. Baldwin was also able to claim the morning overall win, which was a first for her as well. 

The question now is, can someone else work their way up to the middle of the podium and take a win? With the championship over, there are plenty of riders who want to show they have what it takes to claim a win. The racing in the WXC class has been fantastic this year and hopefully Powerline Park provides a great race as well.  

Chris Borich the defender (Rodney Tomblin)

The contenders could not be much different in the roads traveled to reach this point. Chris Borich is etched into the history books as one of the greatest ATV racers ever, holding only 5 championships he has more overall wins than anyone in the history of the sport. He began his off-road racing career at the age of 16, and he has continued to work his way through the GNCC ranks slowly building a name and reputation. He became an apparent threat to the then GNCC King Bill Ballance. As a thorn in the side to Bill he seemingly would have the champ where he wanted him but could never seal the deal.

In his time battling with Bill Ballance, Chris Borich was able to capture a number of wins and even at times seem to threaten Bill’s reign. As everyone knows, right at the time Chris became the biggest threat and challenge Bill was injured, had cancer and many complications from some broken ribs he never really let fully heal to try and keep Chris from winning. Ultimately the drive to remain on top ended Ballance’s career and the torch was passed to a well deserving prince Chris Borich. And please know that crown was not inherited, it was earned.

Five solid championships later, Chris Borich has shown everything a champion could possibly show. Courage, humor, desire, will and heart but he has never faced the challenges he is facing now. Actually no GNCC ATV Champion since the series infancy has been in this tight of championship race at this juncture in the season. Only 5 points separate Chris from Walker and now more than ever the champ will have to rely on his skills and maturity to see him through. Never being in this situation no one truly knows if Chris can rise up to this kind of pressure this late in the battle.

Walker Fowler the challenger (Rodney Tomblin)

Our other contender is the young Walker Fowler. As stated before, his path to the GNCC XC1 was much different. Walker grew up racing from the age of 4. His father raced and well you kind of get the picture. Walker always used to tell the story of how he always liked winning and getting trophies so he decided to race motorcycles and ATVs so he could have two trophies a weekend. Eventually though Walker reached a point coming out of the Youth division of choosing between the two disciplines. He had offers from both sides but had to decide where to focus his efforts as things were getting serious when he was only 15 years old.

Walker chose the quads and the rest is history as they say. The cool thing about this history is that it is still being written. Walker climbed the amateur ranks and dominated nearly every step of the way. He acquired two XC2 Pro Am championships. Rode a perfect season and even had won at least two overalls before even lining up head to head with Chris Borich and the rest of the XC1 talent.

Side-by-Side Racing returns to the lineup (Jen Ken)

Side-by-Side racing returns to the lineup on Saturday afternoon and I know those guys are anxious to get back to GNCC Racing. The last time we saw Side-by-Side racing was at John Penton back in June and it was the lethal Can-Am duo of Kyle Chaney and his co-pilot Chris Bithell who took the win at. In fact, it was their second consecutive win in the XC1 Modified division, which gives them the points lead heading into the weekend but they have a big target on their rear bumper with guys like Scott Kiger, Tim Farr, William Yokley and John Yokley not too far behind. There’s been a swing in momentum this season as far as SxS racing goes and we might be seeing a whole new crop of drivers challenging the reign of our veterans. I’m not one to root for riders in any particular case because I’m pretty much impartial to everyone but I do like a little bit of underdog action and I LOVE a close battle no matter what class so this is exciting stuff for the sport no doubt.

Jordan Ashburn in for Japan AAGP finale (Jen Ken)

We got some exciting news last week that our friends at the Japan National Cross Country Series (JNCC) have once again invited a GNCC racer to compete in their season finale and this year N-Fab AmPro Yamaha’s Jordan Ashburn has been chosen to represent GNCC. Jordan has had a stellar season so far this year so it’s very fitting that he gets this opportunity to show his skills abroad. Jordan will be accompanied by his father David and Team Faith’s Chuck LeMaster will be in charge of media coverage of the entire trip! So Chuck, we expect a ton of Instagrams, Facebook posts, race reports and photo galleries every day. Ok, maybe not, but Chuck will be along for the ride and providing some content for those of us here in the states and we couldn’t be more excited. The AAGP finale will take place November 2 and we’ll provide details as we get closer.

Congrats to Jordan Ashburn on being chosen to race the JNCC AAGP finale! Photo: Ken Hill

WHAT’S NEW ON RACERTV.COM

RacerTV.com will be LIVE from the 2014 ITP Powerline Park GNCC this weekend. Saturday ATV racing will begin at 1 pm EST followed by round 5 of UTV racing at 4:30 pm EST. Sunday Bike racing will begin at 1 pm EST. If you can’t make it out to see the action be sure to tune in online at www.RacerTV.com all weekend long!