Welcome to Quick Fill. 

With Thanksgiving taking place last week and folks busy spending time with their families, I figured that instead of posting an ultra-quick version of Quick Fill telling everyone to just enjoy their Thanksgiving and come back next week, that we would simply wait a bit and post a special Monday version of Quick Fill. That would make this week a double Quick Fill week, as we’ll have our traditional Thursday edition as well. Now this seems a bit crazy as things are pretty slow during these opening stages of the off-season and there’s not a lot to talk about but with the GNCC banquets coming up this weekend, we’ll have more to discuss later this week. 

That was a bit of a long-winded and not entirely necessary explanation but if you ever pay attention to when Ryan Echols and I do the track description before each race, my section of that description is usually exactly like that; long-winded and possibly a bit too detailed in some aspects. But of course some folks do like that kind of detail, especially if you’re a bit on the OCD side like I am. I do feel a lot of racers are a little bit OCD; it just varies from person to person as to what degree of OCD you are. Whether its making sure your bars are adjusted the exact way you prefer, or making sure that pipe shines just right, racers have to be a little on the OCD side. 

Moving on, if you’re not attending the GNCC banquet and are looking for a really cool event the California area, our friends at the Kurt Caselli Foundation are hosting their sixth annual Kurt Caselli Ride Day at Fox Raceway. This is a really cool event and while I’ve never been able to attend personally, I’ve talked to quite a few people who have attended in the past and they say it’s a lot of fun! If you’re looking for more details, you can get those details HERE. 

Our friends at Yamaha also just hosted their first annual XTR Extreme Terrain Challenge at Loretta Lynn’s Ranch. This event pitted Yamaha Wolverine and YXZ UTV drivers and co-pilots against a 15-mile course consisting of rugged terrain and a number of manmade obstacles. Our Online Content/Media Manager/Registration Expert Kayla Olliver and I, along with Tim and Griff Cotter plus Tanner Coombs joined the Yamaha and the Loretta Lynn Ranch staff for what turned out to be a really cool event. Anthony Brutto, Loretta Lynn’s Ranch Manager, laid out an awesome course and when he asked me if there was anything I would change or adjust, I just shook my head and told him he nailed it! You can check out some video highlights HERE. If it looks fun to you, stay tuned because they’re working on the details for next year’s event and word is there could possibly be some opportunities for more Yamaha owners to join in on this awesome event. 

Silly season is in full swing and while things have been a little on the quiet side, there’s still a good bit of info beginning to surface. Trevor Bollinger dropped the bomb a few weeks ago that he will be joining the Rockstar Energy Husqvarna Factory Racing team. Thad Duvall will also be back with the Husky team and it’s also interesting to see that former Pro Motocross star Andrew Short has joined the team to contest the WORCS series out west. Shorty was actually at the Wild Boar GNCC last year and I jokingly asked him if he was looking to ride and he said he’d love to race a GNCC sometime. He’s also committed to some Rally events, so he’s got a stacked schedule but one has to wonder if this increased support could lead him to a GNCC appearance. 

With Bollinger switching to the Husky team, many have wondered what that means for the JCR Honda folks and it looks as if the JCR folks will be heading back to their native west coast to focus their efforts there. There will be a new Honda effort in their place consisting of an experienced team who will be making their first bid into GNCC support of this level. We’re still waiting on an official announcement of this effort but early reports are that this will be a combined ATV and bike effort which is pretty cool to see. 

While there’s not been an official announcement just yet, 1993 GNCC champ Fred Andrews has been sharing some photos on social media of some new Kawasaki KX450F’s that he’s been preparing for Team Babbitts Monster Energy Kawasaki which looks to be contesting the GNCC series in 2019. We’ve heard of two top XC1 Pro riders who will be heading to that team, including a former series champ and a rider who had great success on Kawasakis during his amateur career. This is pretty exciting to see and it will be pretty interesting to watch this all unfold. 

That’s going to do it for this edition of Quick Fill. I know that’s definitely on the “quick” side but we’ll save the rest for this week’s full-length edition on Thursday… And as usual, I’ll find some cool Throwback Thursday photos to add in as well. Enjoy your week and come back Thursday for a pre-banquet edition of Quick Fill!