by: Jared Bolton
Thursday, January 9, 2025 | 2:10 PM
Welcome to Quick Fill.
And welcome to 2025. The New Year has been around for a tick over a week now, and if you sit down and take a look at a calendar, you’re going to realize that the new GNCC season is going to roll around pretty quickly as well. Currently, we’re about 5 weeks out from the start of the 2025 GNCC season and this time is going to fly by pretty quickly at this point then we’ll be rolling into Big Buck before we know what hit us.
A new season of racing always brings in a lot of change and this year is no different. In the pro ranks there will be some shuffling around here and there, some guys with some new deals, new numbers, new gear, new graphics; everything to make a new season pretty exciting. There for a while social media was always abuzz with all the latest happenings like this, but the last few years everyone has seemed to stay pretty quiet.
Some of this is by design by some riders, sort of like playing a smart poker hand and not showing your cards until it’s time. Other times it’s kind of out of necessity as a lot of guys are still grinding out details leading up to the last few minutes prior to kicking the season off. This is especially true on the ATV side as one, the top talent usually doesn’t have many major changes from season to season and two, they seem to work right up to the last minute to make things happen.
Taking a look down through last year’s final standings, here are a few things of note. On the ATV side, it’s still been fairly quiet. It looks as if there’s no real changes to Brycen Neal’s program out of a few minor part supplier changes. His program with Yamaha and the Phoenix Racing ATV squad is working really well, so why mess with success? The same can be said for Walker Fowler who many questioned if he would be able to return after a nasty injury prior to the 2023 season. However, he was still back contending for race wins and was a big thorn in Brycen Neal’s side challenging for the 2024 championship. Walker doesn’t appear to have any major changes to his program either, outside of a tire sponsor switch to Kenda.
Wyatt Wilkin had a career best season in 2024 ending the year third place overall and will be sporting the big number three on his machine for 2025. Please, Wyatt, do us all a favor and run some Dale Earnhardt graphics… At least at Talladega! Wyatt did mention on Instagram a few weeks back that he has a couple changes coming in 2025, but we haven’t heard much else! Stay tuned because now that Wyatt has put together a great season that included his first-ever overall win, he could be a serious threat moving forward.
Josh Merritt also had the best season of his career in 2024. This guy is like a fine wine and just seems to get better with age. Josh landed on the podium six times in 2024, and even earned himself an overall win along the way, ending the year a career best fourth place overall. Josh has also quietly been preparing for 2025 but did find some time to become engaged, so expect a Merritt wedding sometime soon!
This brings us to Steven Harrell, who echoes Wyatt and Josh by having the best season of his career. Steven has come along and progressed incredibly quickly and ended up an impressive fifth place overall in his first year competing in the XC1 ranks and came close to landing on the podium a few times as well. Steven somewhat flies under the radar as he doesn’t generate much drama around him, but instead just puts in really solid performances and you can expect more of that in 2025. He also doesn’t appear to have any major changes for the 2025 season, and once this guy lands his first podium, he could very well become a consistent podium threat.
Outside the top five are a few other favorites who can still challenge the front of the pack, but just had a little bit of back luck in 2024 that kept them from being there more often. Hunter Hart had a few mechanical issues that kept him out of consistent contention, but he still logged some podium finishes. Adam McGill is still the all-time fan favorite and outside of Chris Borich, the most, um, “seasoned” rider in the XC1 ranks. Adam really hasn’t slowed down any, everyone else has just upped their game a little bit but he can still rise to the occasion. Both of these guys look to be back on the same programs once again… Come on ATV guys, someone switch things up big time and make some serious shake ups!
Moving onto the bike side, defending champ Johnny Girrior rolls into 2025 back with the Factory KTM squad with no major changes to his program. Johnny took a much different route to XC1 stardom than some of the other past champs, making his way out of New England’s JDay Offroad series. The JDay GP events consist of two 30-minute motos, so the three-hour GNCCs took a little time to get used to, but this guy has been absolutely blazing fast for a long time. Now that he’s put it all together, Johnny has a shot to repeat as champ which would be the first repeat in five years.
Jordan Ashburn will still be aboard a GasGas for 2025 but backed by a new team. 2024 marked the final season for the Coastal Racing GasGas squad as the GasGas effort is now backed by Flatrock Motorclub and based out of the Landers’ KTM shop as well. This is a little bit of a change for Jordan, but still familiar as he’s riding the same machine as 2024 and now surrounded by some of the same folks who helped him to his 2022 championship with the Magna1 Husqvarna team, which morphed into the Landers KTM team.
Grant Davis had an incredible 2024 season earning the XC2 class title, finishing the highest an XC2 rider ever has in the overall points, and even earned TWO overall wins out of the XC2 class. With all of this, it only makes sense to defend that XC2 title with the exact same program and that’s exactly what he’s doing as part of the Landers KTM squad in 2025.
Steward Baylor won two races in 2024 and had four additional podium finishes. He challenged Johnny Girroir for the title early, but some freak issues throughout the season dropped him out of final championship contention in the latter part of the season. Stu is still aboard a Kawasaki, on the team he’s put together but he does have some additional help coming into 2025. He’s brought on Ryan Sipes to serve as Team Manager, which could prove to be a huge move for Stu and take some of the day-to-day management off his plate, allowing him to devote more time to his own racing. Stu is still staying busy with his facility, The Shoals, and has some other business ventures cooking, but having Sipes around to help with the team will ease some of the workload and could very well make major changes to his results.
After winning the 2023 title, Craig Delong came into 2024 hungry for another. However, he was also victim to some freak mechanical issues but his came early in the season and put him down from the get-go. Craig rose to the occasion and eventually found his way onto the podium with a mid-season win, and a win at the Ironman finale to put a big cap on the season. Craig will be back for another go with the Factory Husqvarna squad that helped him earn the 2023 GNCC National Championship.
There are no real changes for the next several riders from the 2024 standings as Liam Draper returns with the Am-Pro Yamaha squad in the XC1 class where he actually landed on the podium in all four of his XC1 races. Angus Riordan is back with the Landers KTM team, looking to challenge his teammate Grant Davis in the XC2 class, and Mike Witkowski will still be with the Phoenix Racing Honda team, but this time will be sporting the big number eight instead of that familiar 282. Mike had some good rides in 2024 as well, so even just a number change can be a little thing that can have a major effect.
Evan Smith ended his first XC1 season with a solid ninth place overall finish, landing some top five finishes along the way. Not exactly what Evan has up his sleeve for 2025 but working off an essentially privateer program in 2024 worked out good for him! Grant Baylor missed the last part of the season recovering from a knee surgery and, as usual, has been silent on social media for a long time. In fact, he hasn’t personally posted on Instagram in nearly two years. However, Grant will be riding as part of big brother Stu’s Rocky Mountain ATV/MC Red Bear Racing Kawasaki team in 2025.
Grant was previously part of the Babbitt’s Kawasaki squad, but that team won’t be returning in 2025, so that leaves his former teammate Lyndon Snodgrass putting together his own effort aboard a Husqvarna. Lyndon seems to still be sorting out the details but has shared some clips of him aboard the Husky. Josh Strang ended the 2024 season aboard a Beta, which was obviously a good fit for the former champ as he’s back aboard the Beta for 2025 and is also serving as the East Coast Team Manager for Beta.
The other notable changes on the bike side include Ricky Russell who was just recently announced as riding aboard a Triumph with the Enduro Engineering squad. Ricky will end up becoming the first to race a Triumph in the GNCC XC1 class, which will be exciting to see. Trevor Bollinger was not included as part of the Factory Husqvarna team announcement and has also been silent on social media since around September. However, there have been rumors linking Trevor to a Kawasaki deal of some sort.
Oh, and if you've been underneath a rock for the last few months, there's this guy named Kailub Russell that won some championships that decided he wants to try it again. Yes, Kailub will return to XC1 competition in 2025 after four years away from professional racing. This isn't something that happens often, or at all. In fact, the only ones who really come to mind when you think of this would be Scott Summers who took a few years off in the early 2000s, then returned to racing. And of course on the motocross side, Damon Bradshaw took an early retirement before returning a couple other times in the mid-90s.
However, the biggest shock of the Russell announcement is that he'll be competing aboard a Yamaha in 2025. After a long career aboard KTMs, and time afterwards training the Factory Offroad racers, KR makes a switch to the blue machine for this return. If you listen to some of Kailub's interviews so far, there's really no bad blood, no real drama, no storyline there other than he wanted to go racing again, and KTM just didn't have a spot available.
So, as you can see, there’s a lot to unpack and not a lot of time to do it as race season is almost here. Are you ready? That’s going to do it for this week’s edition of Quick Fill. Enjoy your weekend and we’ll see you back here next week!