by: Jared Bolton
Thursday, May 20, 2021 | 5:15 PM
Welcome to Quick Fill.
Well, it’s time to go racing! We’re gearing up for this weekend’s John Penton GNCC and it’s shaping up to be a good one. Naturally, we’ll have the details on what you could expect on the racecourse coming up, and since we’re super busy getting everything ready we’ll get through this edition of Quick Fill pretty fast so we can get back to it, and let you get back to getting ready as well.
Before we talk about the racecourse, let’s talk about the facility. As mentioned last week, there have been some big changes and the most noticeable is that the motocross track is gone. Yes, it’s totally gone and there have been a number of pads leveled off to make room for parking, pits, vendors, and more. Sure, we hate to see it go but motocross events at Sunday Creek were few and far between in the last decade or so, and with the growing GNCC numbers it really seemed sensible to put the motocross track to rest to make room.
This work has all been done within just a couple of months so that means there’s no grass on it yet. Please be respectful of all the hardwork that’s been done and don’t turn the hills of these new parking pads into your personal pitbike zone or race bike test area. Consider this your warning! Stay off the sides of those pads or it could affect the outcome of your race.
Now lets talk about the racecourse. With the motocross track gone, the finish line has moved over to the left side of the main road after it slopes downhill beyond the concession stand and barn. The start is in the same place it’s been, so that means you’ll actually go a bit further before bypassing the finish line your first time around at this event.
When you take off from the start, you’re starting around the nine-mile mark. This leads you towards the pro pits, which you’ll also skip off the start. You’ll make your way through some up and downhill woods before a short field crossing brings you to the ten-mile mark. This is shorter piece of woods before you pop in and out of the trackside pitting areas several times all the way to the 11-mile mark. Just past the 11, you’ll work your way by the finish and head out on a full lap.
Less than half a mile out of the finish you’ll hit the FMF Powerpoint hill climb behind the concession stand. You’ll work up that stairstep hill, hang a right up top and go just a little across the top of the hill before dropping back down. This bring you to a short little field section before dropping into some open woods over the one-mile mark. This continues all the way to the two-mile mark with some more medium-speed trails that have a few little up and down sections.
After the two, you’ll cross over a little creek and head through a bottom trail that has only been used a couple of times in quite a few years. This works you over to an open hillclimb back up the hill and over to the three-mile mark. Just past that, you’ll drop down across the creek once again and head over to the Monster Mile. It’s at the big split rock hill climb that always draws a lot of spectators.
This will bring you through a mix of open and faster trail to the four-mile mark where it will tighten up just a bit in spots. Things get a little faster just before the five-mile mark, and right after the five the bike races will split off down into a bottom trail, run along side a creek then pick up a long uphill that will then turn and go backwards down the quad trail all the way back to where you left it, before it splits off again into a tighter trail to transfer you over to The John Penton Section.
The quads will continue through an up and down section before heading over to the six-mile mark, while the bikes continue into that John Penton Section. Once again, our local buddy Jeff Hupp jumped in to layout that Penton Section. He really, really mixed things up this time. You’ve got just under a mile of technical single track with a few challenging up and down hill areas that will bring you out into the grass track on the backside of the Penton Section. This is where things get really interesting.
There will be a huge mile and half long section of grass track in the back of the Penton Section. Now, this isn’t wide-open grass track that we have at a typical GNCC. It’s tight, twisty grass track that looks like an ISDE special test. Both sides of the entire grass track are bannered off, and there will be plenty of eyes on that grass track as well, so be sure to stay on that grass track! That grass track winds along and drops back into another mile or so long section of woods that will bring you out of the Penton Section and back to the main course.
From the six to the seven mile mark is a mix of some twisty trail that tends to be a little more open, but it does have some areas of mud in this section, but nothing back. This eventually leads you through some more open trail and back across the road towards the field you started in and the eight-mile mark. After the eight, you drop back in the woods for a few up and downhill sections and one long uphill that brings you back into that field once again, just before dropping into the woods and back out into the field again.
This field section winds behind the starting line and to the nine-mile mark to tie you back in where you started. For the PM ATV racers, your course will be 11.2 miles and for the PM bikes with the special bike only section and The John Penton Section added in, your course is a whopping 16 miles! Overall it promises to be really, really awesome.
That’s all I’ve got for this week. Before we wrap things up, I will say that the fields are dry but the woods have a little bit of moisture so expect really great conditions out of The John Penton! Enjoy your weekend and we’ll see you here at the Penton!