This is a forum by and for the Off-Road Race
Community. If you've got comments, complaints, suggestions,
insight, interesting news, want to share some BS or have an
interesting product you'd like to introduce to the world of
Off-Road Racing, send it Here. It's been a good year. We
broke into it after a long-winded run of the Baja 2000, jumped
directly onto the course at Laughlin to fire off the 2001 season
and then rode it like the endless whoop section just north of San
Felipe at the season finale for The Thousand.
I don't know where we got a
hold of this photo, but I'll tell you this: This guy's wrestling
match with a Chollo didn't end up in his favor. If you know the
guy, send our regards.
At times it got rough, but the good times, great
races and cherished friends of the community kept us going and -
together - we finished off the season with an enormous boost in
traffic for the Race section, which turned into an enormous boost
for the sport as a whole.
I don't know if
it's the politically correct thing to do, but what the hell. Here
it goes: "Thanks Sal." I suppose that wasn't all that bad - even
though a few of you out there may be gagging at the blasphemy
therein. But what the hell, you got to give thanks where a thanks
is due. He, as a countless number of readers/racers have said, "put
on one hell of a race." I'm sure the Fortin/Townsley crew would
have to say same thing, considering that they're setting the pace
for buggies everywhere, including the promoter-defying Pro Dirt
organization.
As far as other thanks, the
biggest one has got to go out the readers. Without them, the
Off-Road.com Race section would not have edged into the
half-million-page view mark for the month of November. Check out
what they had to say about The Thousand in this month's
retrospective of the race, the crews and the readers that followed
along the entire way. The Season
Ahead
With Casey (Best in the Desert)
cramming a few new and welcomed races into the mix for next season
and Sal (SCORE) throwing in his best effort to do the same, next
year will be a tougher one to cover than those previous. And that's
not to mention the SNORE, CORR, MDR and Whiplash races that we
(Team ORC) have our eyes on for the season's coverage.
A few of us here, namely Pat and I, will be
walking around with a permanent set of bags beneath our eyes by the
time the green flag is waved for the first two feuding races of the
season. We'll be there at both of them, the Whiplash/SNORE Parker
400 and the Laughlin Desert Challenge the weekend of January
25.
We've also had this sitting in
the pile for a while. Here, you see the Flippins in a classic pose
we call, "The Confused Course Workers."
The Promoter's Feud What's the deal with that anyway? But as Judy Smith says,
Sal's been holding his race on that same weekend ever since the
race's inception. One thing's for sure though, as the head cheese
from a casino and council there said, "Providing a place to race is
our end of the deal. Providing the racer is Sal's end of the
deal."
It looks like Sal will draw a bulk
of the Trophy Trucks entries for the weekend. So far, that, in and
of itself, looks promising. You've got some victory-hungry guys who
proven themselves in other classes moving into the ranks. If I were
to choose which race to go to based on the action of that class
alone, I'd have to go with near-short course action at Laughlin.
But others don't see it this way - many others. Parker Calling
For them, the
traditional Parker 400 is the answer. Consider the fact that Pro
Dirt (Class 1), Pro 10, Pro 12 (if they've formed yet) and Pro 16
are just a few of the folks joining in on the journey south to
Arizona. There alone you're going to get a huge heyday mass of
racers. Remarkable. But that's not all. Papa Whiplash, otherwise known as Jay, the promoter you can
actually have a beer and share war stories with, teamed up with
SNORE for a combined promoter showdown of sorts, bringing in two
promoter's worth of entries.
With this
massive influx of action, will Jay, and the folks from SNORE be
able to keep the circus act in line? I'm pretty damn positive they
will. For starters, they won't be running the relatively small
30-40 courses they ran in recent years. To account for the
excessive entries, they seem to have kicked up the mileage of the
loop to what it was in its heyday, going all out for a run to
Bouse, which will bump it up to around 60 miles or more.
2001 San Felipe race.
Ouch.
Bumping Up or Bumping Out
Word just in from The Anonymous and his attached
Siamese twin brother Unconfirmed is BitD may be giving up the ghost
for the grand total of $100,000. Included in this package was said
to be the added perk of BLM permits stretching into the year 2003
or 4 and some kind of tie into Yamaha.
What
does this mean? It means that after the fat lady sings, the keg is
empty, the man on the moon calls it a night and I head to Baja for
a bit of a New Year's vacation at Pete's Camp, that this scam is
nothing but a RUMOR! At least that's the only thing Casey would cop
to calling it. In the WORCS
Since the first World Off Road Championship Series
(member of The Bike Guys) event in January 2001 at Glen Helen,
BitD's races have suffered a noticeable drop in entries.
WORCS race promoters Dave Hamel and Jeff Phillips,
who - by the way - may not be on the best of speaking terms at the
moment (that's another story for another day), have got a good
thing going with their "GNCC-type" race series, mounting numbers
that extend well into the hundreds at each event.
The Fud Card, good wherever
good times go. Pucker up to another round. 2001 Laughlin Choo Choo
Train Bar. See you there in a few weeks!
Kawasaki has pulled a leg off its BitD mount and
stepped onto a course with WORCS. Together with other manufacturers
like KTM, Yamaha, Suzuki, Husaberg and Husqvarna, the series is
shaping up quite well, but Casey has his hands in some other great
and notorious action. Desert
Vipers
Casey, along with promoting his
first Baja race in October, has teamed up with the Desert Vipers to
join in the action at the world's largest off-road race, the
Adelanto Grand Prix. This was a great move for Casey and a great
place for two dueling ORC chumps (myself and Mike Hobbs) to settle
a little ORC staff pissing match. We'll give you the lowdown on
that next month when we gear up for the February 23rd and 24th
race.
Hell, Mike and I are even thinking
about putting on a Barstow to Vegas race, just in case the showdown
at Adelanto doesn't fare to well for him - meaning, if he can't
handle the wrath of me and my clapped out air-cooled XR 400 aboard
his XR 650 Baja race machine.
Dan Beaver, Parker's
best.
We might have to enlist the help of the Desert
Vipers, the Phantom Duck and Super Hunky to put on such an outlaw
and underground event, but what the hell? The BLM and the Eco-Nazis
don't own this land. We the People are responsible for that. And we
say, "Gentlemen kick start your vintage iron men!" No, that's not
right. That's what Super Hunky says. We say, "Gentlemen, kick start
your dirt bike! See you in Vegas suckers!" One Last Thing
Before we slip
into our set of flip flops and head south, dressed in the one and
only Baja Bib and riding high upon the left seat of the ORC Ark,
let's touch upon the SCORE awards banquet. No, we better
not.
Well, maybe we ought to. Let's just
say this: Baja Class 22 champ Steve Hengeveld (the fastest man in
Baja right now) handled it well. Sal mistakenly handed the OVERALL
bike champion trophy to him rather than the Mexican David
Ruvalcaba, the YZ250 rider who triumphed in this year's points
battle by some three points. Last year, he lost it by a measly one
point.
Bob Bower, interviewing the
legendary Unkle Max at the Off-Road Expo, before The Unkle went
into hiding and began ditching countless Checker meetings. It is
said that he's working a bar in Azusa off of Irwindale Avenue as a
swinger. We're sure he'll emerge in Parker.
We've got to say, although David never overalled
the race or came too close to beating the boys in Red, he had the
guts to walk up to the podium, tap Sal on the shoulder while he was
mid-stride into the next award and point out Sal's mistake.
Congrats David!
As for Hengeveld and
teammate Jonah Street, ride on. Hengeveld notched a total of three
championships this season, one for his efforts in AMA District 37,
another for a championship season in Best in the Desert and the
biggest for his race-winning streak in SCORE Baja races, where he
knocked Johnny Campbell and Tim Staab off the podium for this
year's award. Co rider Jonah aims to take his year overseas where
he hopes to fulfill a dream and compete for top honors in
ISDE.
For Staab, get well buddy. Staab had
a serious get off at the season ender in Vegas, debuting Honda's
new CRF 450 four stroke. He's still in the hospital and we send our
prayers and all our best. Fidel
Gonzales
Off-Road Videos - Check out over ten years of extreme 4x4 action, product testing and the Off Road Nation at play. Baja racing to rock crawling, ATVs in the sand to motorcycles in the dirt, it's all here. Rate them, share them and upload your own.
ATV Reviews - Honda, Suzuki, Yamaha, Polaris, Kawasaki, Can-Am. First rides to long-term tests, check out the latest in ATVs, UTVs and Side-by-Side vehicles of every make and model. Read expert opinions and follow custom project vehicles.
Axxxtion Sports..... Axxxtion Sports is heating things up with their 2010 Winter Heat snowmobile calendar! Simply Sexy!
