Welcome to Quick Fill. 

We’re back! After a brief hiatus, we’re getting back into the swing of all the Quick Fill goodies and plan to keep the train rolling on through the winter break. Things have been pretty hectic as we wrapped up the Pro Motocross season at Ironman back in August, then went straight to Buckwheat. From there it was straight to North Carolina for the Charlotte SMX event, then back up to Beckley for The Mountaineer. Once that was in the books, it was off to Las Vegas for more SMX and then straight back into The John Penton. Most of our staff ended up with a weekend off after that, but I opted to use the off weekend to begin preparations for the Day in the Dirt event last weekend at High Point Raceway, and that finally got us to this week and a real weekend off for most everyone. 

However, this is now going to lead us right into the biggest event of the year with the Ironman GNCC. If by some chance you’re reading this and have never been to the Ironman, then you’ve been missing out. The photos and videos really do it no justice and you can’t imagine just how big this event really is until you see it with your own eyes, and this year promises to be yet another big one. There’s some excitement building as the the ATV National Championship is actually still up for grabs. 

It’s down to a two-rider battle between back-to-back and defending ATV champ Brycen Neal, and the seven-time champ Walker Fowler. Brycen holds a somewhat comfortable 16-point lead over Walker, but we all know that anything can happen in a GNCC event and it’s no secret that even the best of the best occasional have freak issues that can end their races early. To break it down a little bit, the National Championship is determined by the overall and not the XC1 class points. It pays 30 points for an overall win, then drops to 25 for second, 21 for third, 18 for fourth, 16 for fifth, then decreases by one point all the way down to 20^th overall. If you finish outside the top 20, you’re left scoring zero points. 

Walker has won the last two rounds, and let’s just say he were to snag the overall win yet again at Ironman. If Walker were to win, he would need Brycen to finish eighth place overall or worse in order to take the championship. Brycen has been on the podium at every race except for Buckwheat where he had a mechanical issue and finished outside the top 20, leaving him scoring zero points. If you look at things this way and were a sports betting type person, the odds would still in Brycen’s favor to hold on for championship number three. However, even the most minor mechanical issue, or even a late race mishap, could drop him to eighth place or lower. 

Let’s just say this were to happen. Let’s just say some sort of issue left Brycen buried deep in the pack and Walker was able to take the title for the first time since 2021. When is the last time an ATV racer lost the title, then regained it later? You would have to go all the way back to 1992! The Ironman himself, Bob Sloan, won the 1989 GNCC ATV National Championship before losing it to Chuck Dullulo in 1990 and 1991 before regaining it in 1992. From there, the ATV championships were dominated by Barry Hawk’s seven titles from 1993-1999, Bill Ballance’s record nine titles from 2000-2008, Chris Borich’s six titles run from 2009-2014 before Walker’s seven championships from 2015-2021. 

Now, while these two are gunning for the title there are ultimately going to be some others who would like to end the season on a high note. Josh Merritt has put together the best season of his career. Josh snagged his first-ever overall win at Powerline Park this year and has landed five other podium finishes to currently sit third place in the overall point standings. Wyatt Wilkin has also put in a career season, earning his first-ever overall win at the Buckwheat 100 and sits fourth place overall. These guys have both been able to claim an overall win in 2024 and will definitely be hungry for one more before the year ends. 

Shifting gears to the bike side, the championships are locked up there but just like we mentioned about these ATV guys, there are a number of bike racers who are capable of claiming the overall win and are going to be gunning to snag one more win before wrapping up the season. Johnny Girroir wrapped up the National Championship back at The Mountaineer and while he’s ridden to six XC1 class wins in 2024, he actually only holds four overall wins on the season as these XC2 guys have been absolutely insane this year. 

There’s no doubt that the champ will be looking to end the year with a bang and one more overall win, but there’s a lot of guys who aren’t going to make this easy on him. Grant Davis has arguably been the most impressive racer of the latter part of the 2024 season. Grant snagged a few XC2 class wins early and the season, one of which included an impressive second place overall finish in Florida. The following week, Josh Toth topped the XC2 field and did what no racer had ever done and claimed the overall win from the XC2 class. Toth’s win is undoubtedly legendary, but with muddy conditions the event really favored the smaller 250cc machine and many were left wondering if the opportunity would present itself again for an XC2 racer to take the overall. 

Things sort of calmed down in the XC2 ranks for the next few rounds as the 250cc machines hovered inside those top 10 overall positions like normal, until Davis was able to land on the overall podium yet again at the Mason-Dixon. When the series returned from summer break, Davis would step up his game even further and take the overall win. Jordan Ashburn would snag his first overall win of the season at a rocky and dusty Mountaineer GNCC, before Davis would come into The John Penton hungry to take another win. 

This time, even though Davis was well into the lead on adjusted time, he was looking to physically win the overall. He would come up just a few feet short of Ashburn, who would take his second straight XC1 class win, but Davis made history again by snagging another overall win from the XC2 class and became the first racer to take TWO overall wins from the XC2 class. This also propelled Davis into the second-place position in the overall point standings, the highest overall an XC2 racer has ever sat. 

Ironman tends to be a bit on the faster side, and you can argue that it does not favor the 250cc machines, even with the time adjustment added into the mix but Grant Davis has already proven that anything can happen, so don’t be surprised if he once again figures out a way to start playing spoiler to those overall positions. Jordan Ashburn has also been on fire as of late, with those two XC1 wins we just mentioned. Ironman’s fast and open course doesn’t exactly favor Jordan who excels in technical conditions, but if it were to rain you better watch out because Jordan likes the mud! 

Now, let’s talk about Steward Baylor. This guy is a favorite no matter what the conditions, scenario, or style of racetrack. Stu snagged back-to-back wins earlier this season, including our first visit to Ironman Raceway this spring. The last few rounds haven’t been very kind to Stu, but he’s really good at digging deep and pulling out a win down the stretch, so don’t be surprised if you see Stu on the top step of the Ironman podium. 

What I’m getting at here, is while there’s not a whole lot in the way of championship battles shaping up for the Ironman, the racing itself still has a ton of potential to be really, really exciting. Throw in the massive crowd, and these guys could easily put on a heck of a show on both the ATV and bike sides. 

When Ironman goes into the books, so does the 2024 GNCC Racing season. But, we’re not quite done. We’ll once again be making the trek to Japan for the JNCC season finale November 10^th. Last year, Steward Baylor enjoyed the experience so much that he wanted his little brother Grant to experience as well. We gave the thumbs up to Grant, and Stu was even willing to put together his own effort to attend as well. JNCC President, Masami Hoshino was able to get 2 Kawasaki KX450s lined up for Grant and Stu but unfortunately Grant is working through a knee injury and isn’t going to be healed in time for the event. 

The Kawasaki folks were really looking forward to Stu’s return (along with Grant, of course!) so, with the Kawasaki machines already lined up we put in a quick substitute in the form of Nick DeFeo. Nick is another racer who has been incredibly impressive in 2024, finishing as high as seventh place overall on two separate occasions out of the 250 A class. So, this year’s JNCC AAGP exchange riders will consist of Steward Baylor and Nick DeFeo, and there’s some work going on behind the scenes at the moment to get another XC1 racer in the mix, depending on the availability of a properly branded machine for him to race. 

In addition to this, myself and Colby Stiles from our track crew will be along for the trip and we’ll both be contesting their morning race. This will be Colby’s first trip for the event, and he’ll actually be riding the Husqvarna 350 I raced in last year’s morning race, and I’ll be aboard a KTM 250EXC (which is the worldwide version of what we call the XC-W model in the USA) both of which are loaned to us from Basist Auto KTM in Japan, so huge thanks to them. I ended up eighth place in the AM race last year, so my only goal is to improve on that. I’ll tell you, there’s some pretty fast guys over there so we’ve got our work cut out for us!

Well, that’s going to do it for this week’s edition of Quick Fill. As long as everything goes right, we’ll be back next week with all the latest on Ironman. Enjoy your weekend and we’ll see you back here next week!