by: Jared Bolton
Thursday, May 7, 2020 | 9:35 PM
Welcome to Quick Fill.
It’s official! We’re going racing next weekend, May 16-17. We’ve worked hard to put everything together and we’ll be heading back to Aonia Pass MX in Washington, Georgia. This time we’ll be calling it The Bulldog! It’s exciting to get back to racing, and we realize it’s not totally ideal to go back to a facility we’ve already raced at this season, but given the situation right now and availability of race locations, going to a community familiar with GNCC Racing is the most sensible thing.
Please note that The Bulldog will be a full GNCC weekend. We’ll be racing Micros and eMTB, so if you’re curious if your racer is racing or not, just know it will be a full weekend like usual. For those who are concerned about the racecourse, please be aware that the track crew did a lot of dozer work before we left Aonia Pass after the previous round. We’re also planning to change as much as possible. There are some sections that will have to be used no matter what, but we’re going to do our best to change up as much of it as possible. So, don’t show up expecting the same thing as last round.
We’re also working hard to confirm the next event, as well as the other TBA rounds. Please know that this isn’t as simple as snapping our fingers and saying “lets go here” There are a lot of different factors involved in putting together an event right now. Of course, as soon as we have a total green light, we’ll let you know. Everyone has been incredibly patient through all of this and we greatly appreciate the support of the GNCC Racing Nation. I know I say this a lot but GNCC truly is a family. We may not all always get a long perfectly, and may not see eye to eye on some things but at the end of the weekend we all love the sport!
In other news, the Racer Productions staff also has an event this weekend. We’ll be hosting a Ride Day at High Point Raceway this Saturday from 12pm-5pm. The High Point Motocross track will host five rotations of practice with four groups in each practice. We’ve also got a three-mile GNCC Loop for big bikes, a two-mile eMTB Loop that is open to both e-bikes and traditional mountain bikes, a 50cc track and a Stacyc Course! So there’s a ton of stuff happening.
Apologies to our ATV friends, but this will be a bike only event this weekend as there’s just not enough time in the day to accommodate everyone. Also, sorry to any Youth looking to ride the GNCC woods loop. It’s not an overly difficult loop, but there are a few hills and off-camber areas that would be pretty difficult for the average mini rider, and we don’t want anyone stuck out there!
There will be some social distancing guidelines in place, so make sure you check out all the info beforehand. To see all the details including those guidelines plus fees, track info, and everything else, click HERE. If you’re interested in riding the GNCC Loop, I’ll give you a quick low down on what to expect. It’s a three-mile loop that will start and finish underneath the power lines by the Mount Morris Tire Shop. There will be arrows and signs to point you to the start.
The first mile or so of the loop is mostly woods with a short little field section. There’s one little single-track piece not far after you start and it’s a lot of fun. You’ll wind through some flowing double track trail and pop out next to the motocross track before heading over to a little grass track. The grass track is a little tighter and twistier than a normal GNCC grass track, but it’s really great practice! When you head back into the woods, you’ll have some off-camber sections, a couple of steep downhills and gradual uphills on a mix of some trails that are just wide enough for a quad, and some faster patches here and there.
There’s another field section towards the end of the loop that will bring you to some woods that zigzag back and forth underneath the power lines. You’ll cross over a road and work back up the power line to where you started at and complete the three-mile loop. And, of course you can continue back on for another lap without having to exit the course. It’s a really fun loop and I think between working on it and going out to ride it to burn some lines in I’ve put like 20 laps on it already. Come on out because the woods are great, the motocross track will be primo and bring your eMTB to take a lap over there as well!
This week we got in another episode of Behind the Bars. This time it features the 2010 Snowshoe bike race with the top three overall: Nate Kanney, Jesse Robinson and Chris Bach. Jesse was in the XC2 class, and was actually physically leading the overall on the last lap but Kanney was able to take the win. How did it happen? Well, you’ll have to watch the show to find out but it’s an incredible story.
Thad Duvall still holds the time record for the closest an XC2 rider has ever finished behind the overall leader. Thad was just 3.5 seconds behind David Knight at Snowshoe in 2008. However, when you listen to Jesse Robinson’s story of his last lap at that 2010 Snowshoe race, it really sounds like Jesse had that one in the bag and had a shot at winning the overall. I won’t ruin it, just check out the show!
Given that we’re returning to racing next weekend, the Behind the Bars series will take a break for a few weeks, but we want to keep this coming over time. As usual, if you have a suggestion for a show drop me at line at [email protected] and let me know what you think would be a cool episode.
Since we’re busy getting the High Point Ride Day ready, I’m going to keep this week’s edition of Quick Fill a little on the short side. However, before we wrap this thing up I do have some big breaking news. For those who don’t know, our own Mikey Waynes hosts a weekly show called The Bottleneck Live with mechanical ace David Quillen (AKA: DQ). Well, on this week’s show they started discussing the Sherco and Stu Baylor split we discussed this week. They wanted to know what was up, so they just simply cold called Steward Baylor to hear it straight from the source.
Stu did say that he is currently not able to comment on his split with Sherco, which is sort of what was expected. However, Stu dropped a bomb in the discussion when he mentioned that he will be in Georgia next weekend but… don’t expect to see him throw a leg over a motorcycle. Unfortunately Stu hasn’t been able to put anything together just yet and even if something were to pan out over the weekend, it would be incredibly tough to come up with a competitive program in a matter of days. It’s not impossible but Stu himself said that it doesn’t look like he’ll be racing for a while.
Stu was noticeably less perky and outgoing versus what we normally hear from him, and you can tell that the situation is really weighing heavy on him. Obviously we’re all super bummed to hear this and wish Stu the best, but like I said last week, when Stu gets back on the track it could be quite the show. When Stu is faced with adversity, he pulls out some pretty impressive performances, so stay tuned.
That’s going to do it for this week. Until next time, enjoy your weekend, stay safe and if we don’t see you at High Point this weekend, we’ll definitely see you either here next week for Quick Fill or next weekend in Georgia!