I Sure Am Glad This Didn’t Happen To Me!

This is a sequence of Mark Junge crashing in a race this past weekend.

Now, I fall down on a dirt bike or on a bicycle – a lot.  Sometimes I get hurt, other times not.  It is never fun.  Mark hits the pavement hard on his motorcycle, and just…oh well, you take a look.

Mark Junge is a bad ass.

And after that…that is it?!  Just get up and walk away?  Wow.

J

Ironman GNCC video

Have you ever wondered what it is like to start the afternoon race from the last wave.  Well, now you will see.

This is my start and a bit of the course for the Ironman GNCC race in Crawfordsville this year.  I got a crap start, but redeemed myself by the end.  It is hard to boil a 3 hour race down to just 15 minutes, but here goes.

out… till Loretta’s.

Joe

That Monkey is not taunting me any longer – #ironmangncc

Yep, I have shut that one up. Hopefully for good. I have been chasing a top 5 placing at the Ironman GNCC for what seems like FOREVER.

So let’s get it out now. The conditions were epic, the dirt was epic, there were 21 people on my row, I carded a 4th. The monkey is off my back. If you want to stop here, you can.

I’m not really a plaque kinda guy, but this is a GNCC after all.

Let’s Do Ironmannnnnnn….

I have the Ozzy album Tribute To Randy Rhodes. On the cover it has an extra creepy Oz man looking straight at you, the listener. On that album he does the Deep Purple classic “Ironman”. It rocks. It also knda makes me wish I was still sporting the mullet. Not as much as listening to Mötley Crüe does, but you know…

I am torn between Ozzy’s “Let’s Do Ironman” guttural scream it to the rafters intro for that song on that album, or the traditional “Tennnnnn Sssseconndds!” GNCC intro as the intro to this blog entry. Either way, you have figured out about now hat it is Indiana GNCC time. Oh yeah.

The Ironman is the scene of the crime, so to speak. I mean to say, that it is the race that kinda kicked all of this into gear for Scott and I. Let’s see, revisionist history would put it something like this

– started racing locally in something like 2003. I think I came 3rd place n the B class on a used KDX200 that I had purchased from Roger Bird.
– I graduated up to a Yamaha YZ 250 after that, and was again 3rd in the B class.
– In 2005, we did the Ironman for the first time. I was completely taken with the race. The crowds, the field, the GP cornfield, the hills etc… Wow was all I could say. I had a horrible race. Fell in the first turn and lost my front brake. End of race early.
– in 2006 I graduated to a YZ 250F. I won the A class overall in D16HS racing. I went back to the Ironman GNCC race and finished 10th in the +40 class.
– In 2007, I shredded my knee in the middle of summer and could not do the Ironman in this year. But, the previous year is what started the ball rolling for Scott and I. This is the season where out of the blue one time I said to Scott, “We should do the whole GNCC series”.
– we collected sponsorship for the 2008 season and did the whole series.
That is kinda revisionist history, but that is pretty much how I got to the back seat of Mat’s van on the way down to the Ironman GNCC race, once again. This has to be the 5th or so time that I have done this race. I have had medium races there, and I have had bad races. I have gone somewhere between DNF’D and 7th. I have never had a good race there. I am still searching.

This mornings odyssey started at 5 am from my house. Mat picked up Scott and I there. I am stuffed into the back seat of the van writing a blog, following along with others on twitter. Basically being a Moto traveling knob.

Tennnn seconnndddss!

Joe

The End or Begining is Near

On the show Sesame Street, there was a muppet who would run up to the camera and scream NEAR, then run away from the camera and scream FAR. it was a brilliant way of showing the concepts. Sometimes I still struggle with those concepts. Take the season, for example (well don’t really take it, as I quite enjoy it). This season is almost over. It is unfortunate, as it seems to take forever to get here, then all of a sudden the leaves are falling off the trees and it is over.

Sometimes, this is how I feel about it as well.

Yet, at the same time, the new season is really not that far away. I guess that is how I came up with the Sesame Street reference. Well, that and I think Grover is about the coolest ever. Near…Far!!

So we had the world championship of D16 races last weekend – Dyracuse. A storied place (Oh, wait. I already used that term.) Ok, let’s just call it a place where a lot has happened for me in racing. Last year I won the race with a really great ride. It felt good, and Scott also won the overall and his class. That has not ever happened before. A day when we both won on the same day. I also clinched the A class there 3 years ago, when I came 2nd and Ben DNF’d. We were that close at the end of the season. I also lost the B class there about 5 years ago. I came into that race in the series lead, but smashed my exhaust pipe and struggled to finish in the top 5. The same thing happened to JD this year for the AA overall win. (Luke, trust your feelings, let the force guide you, come over to the dark side – or some crazy shit like that.)

But alas, I wrote about that race already, and even put up a crappy video showing how poorly I rode. I couldn’t win the overall there by winning, but I would have felt good ending the season with a better result there. Oh well.

So now I am gearing up to do the last 3 GNCC races. The Ironman in Indiana (the scene of the crime), and then the double GNCC race weekend at Loretta’s in Tenn. That is going to be tough. 2 GNCC 3 hour races in just 3 days. Ouch.

I wonder if she will be there also?

After those races, it will be full time working on the prep for next season. Actually, it all needs to start this weekend. Time to get sponsor update letters out and get confirmation of our plans to sponsors etc… There is also a full race calendar to organize.

But, this off season, there will be way more to do than normal. You will want to check back here in a couple weeks for some REALLY BIG news from Scott and I. Cannot say more yet, but we are working on some really big things.

So as I was saying, the new season is at the same time very far away and also very near.

NEAR…FAR!!

Out.

Dang. Who put that tree there?

There was a race on Sunday.  It is a good race.  It is actually one of my favorite races.  Dyracuse.  Wisconsin Rapids.  8-9 miles of beautiful flowing singletrack.  It can be sandy, but today it was perfect.   It had rained a bit during the week, so the sand had a bunch of moisture in it.  It was pretty much hero dirt.  Wow.

Yep. It pretty much looked like that. It rocked, in other words.

When you talk about perfect dirt in the dictionary, it pretty much notes that on Oct 2, 2011.  Dyracuse had perfect dirt.  I think it is actually in the Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy.  (Let it be known that the people who wrote the guide, were the first people up against the wall when the revolution came.)

Scott broke his scapula.  Not his spatula, but his scapula.  It is the big flat blade in your back.  Ya, I know.  How the hell do you break that?   Not sure I can even tell you.  But, it has resulted in me getting the last races of the year by myself.  Oh well, at least I do not have to ever turn off Pearl Jam radio.

He broke it on his mountain bike.  Even though, it seems that we should be getting hurt on Motorcycles, it is just not true.  We get hurt way more on our bicycles.  I have a theory about all of that.  Goes something like this.  “The Brontosaurus is skinny at the head, much much larger in the middle and skinny again at the foray.”  Really what I am saying is that when you are on your motorcycle, you are wearing all kinds of protective gear and you know it is dangerous, so you pay attention.  At some point on a mountain bike, we all say “whatever, it is just a mountain bike…”  that is when it gets you.  Happened to me at Whistler last year, happened to Scott this year.

Any way, I had a stupid race on Sunday.  Not stupid because the race was stupid, but rather because I am an idiot.  I finally felt that I could run with John.  It is my course at Dyracuse, and it is the kind of riding I like.  Fast and flowing.  The dirt was perfect, as the photo above shows, and I felt good.  When you look at the video, you will see that I had all kinds of pace.

Take a look at the video below.

1.  I got a crap start.  I mean, 3 kicks on the stabber.  Geez.  WTH?  I even look over at Ben on the side line and shake my head as I leave the line.

Notice that everyone is leaving the line, and I appear to be... who the hell knows!

And everyone is gone...I'm still kicking. Geez. Looser.

2.  Then, I catch John and Karl and then promptly smack a tree hard.  Broke my visor off my helmet and as I was getting going, I saw my helmet cam on the ground.  Lucky I saw it.  I picked it up and then stuffed it in my pants.  So, you get a peep show while I am riding.  Seriously, that is my junk on film.  (Ha ha, made you look at the film.)  About 5 minutes in, you will see me smack a tree hard.  I ended up having to stop about a lap later to give the camera to someone, because I kept sitting on it.

So, a lap or so later I stopped at the start finish.  Jorge was there

Me. “Hey Jorge.  Come here.”  (Me reaching into my pants)

Jorge. “What’s up?”

Me. “My Camera.  I broke it, it is in my pants.”

Jorge. “I’m not sticking my hand in there.”

Absolutely classic.  I need to get some smarts.

Out  –  Joe

random shot

At least I kinda know how to ride