ppeengines
09-14-2009, 06:46 AM
Well Friday it started off great in the morning. Was all packed up and on our way to do a 7 +hour adventure to the infamous Unadilla GNCC. Me and the wife chit chatted the whole time going over what all needed to be done when we got there and what needed to be done to the quad before the next morning. Everything was going great until about an hour before we got to the race. Dark clouds ahead. Said to myself "Please just rain a hair to knock down on the dust and then quit for a great race god". Well you would of thought I jumped out of my ride to do a full RAIN DANCE cuz it started to pour!!! Just my luck and for the rest of us getting there having to set up camp i n the middle of the rain. Thank god my wife is a true trooper cuz it didnt phase her setting up camp in the rain. God bless her. Well camp is set up. Will it stop raining? No is the answer til after it got dark it finally did.
But after we got camp set up I pulled the quad off the trailer, tried to start it and nothing. Kept trying and it just would not fire up. Have an 08 450er by the way. Well I had to walk away from the situation to let the blood flow back down from my head cuz I was seeing Red. SO I went and checked out the Pro Pits and just my luck since it was raining none of the Pros were out. This was around 4:45pm. So I walked back to camp and was gonna try to see whats wrong with my quad, cuz I was not registering if I cant get my quad to start. Well I checked everything and come to find out, my throttle cable at the thumb throttle came loose vibrating on the trip up and knocked my throttle position sensor out of whack. Fixed that and she fired right up. GREAT!!
Went to register and ran into a fellow racers I met last year at the 08 Sommerset GNCC. Things started to get better. Got some supper in me and went over the whole quad. Red and blue loctited every bolt on the quad. She is ready to race! I felt good and went to bed.
Got a good 9 hours of sleep and got out of the tent and to my surprise it stopped raining. My prayers were answered.:D Well me and the wife to a walk down to the Pro Pit's around 8am and stopped to check out a Pro's quad for sale for 10,000$. My wife said " Is he insane! 10,000$ for a quad!!" ( sorry my wife doesnt know better and if she only knew that I had twice that into my quad she would have heart failure, he he) Anyways I looked at the quad and said to her that its Harold Goodman's motocross quad. And all of the sudden I heard "Thats me!" I looked over two feet away is Harold Goodman. Well me and my wife and Harold talked for about 15 minutes and I thought that was pretty darn cool. He is a very down to earth guy. He said he might be leaving Honda cuz they are not paying nothing for the 2010 season for atv riders. All 3 of us thought that was a bunch of bull!! Well no matter how much I would of liked to keep talking to him I had to go get some tearoffs for my spare goggles and get ready for the AM race.
Well I ate a good breakfast and got dressed and me and the wife headed on down to the starting line. Well after sitting for ten minutes at the start I felt the breakfast wanting to come back up cuz I was getting nervous. Thought to myself just calm down, ride a set pace and everything will be fine. I felt better. Well I heard the "10 SECONDS FOR MY CLASS" AND I WAS READY!!! Guess what? I flooded it on the start and was dead last off the line. No biggie, I can make it up through the woods I said to myself.
So I haul butt and catch up to everyone. Alright I am back into the race. I make the pass on 3 guys around this big mudd hole and we are off into the woods. Neck and neck there are 6 of us tire to tire threw this wood section. We come out to this field and I get pass 2 of the 6 and go back into the woods. I am getting covered in mud and I am loving it!! This is racing. Well we come to this valley and there is a huge, I mean huge bottle neck. At least 70 riders all jammed up and I am still at the top of the hill waiting to get down it to get back up the side. Tempers were flaring among the riders thinking they could get around the others stuck on the other side of the hill and when they got stuck too riders were getting mad. Well I finally got down the hill and some riders made a new path up the side of the hill but it was steep and rough with a turn right at the top. The rider in front of me didnt want to try it so she moved out of the way for me and up I go.
The race is on!! I knew I had alot of time to make up but wasnt worrid cuz I knew there was alot of my class was still in that bottle neck. I kept saying ride smart ride smooth. Well we hit part of the motocross track and I started to pass 4 riders who didnt want to hit the jumps. Great I am feeling good. We come back into the woods and there was another bottle neck. Just great! When it was my turn to go up I thought the guy in front of me made it up but I could see all the way up. So I took off up the hill. When I got close to the top I noticed there was one quad in the middle of the hill just sitting there with no rider on it and actually no where to be found and the guy in front of me was blocking the whole path so I tried to knock down a couple little trees to get around him and with no such luck. I got stuck!! And to boot I got my rear tire wedged into a tree which kept me from rolling back down the hill. The other riders behind me knew it was the only way to go up the hill cuz of all the trees were in the way. While I was trying to get my quad out from the tree I saw this rider trying to get around all the riders waiting for us to get unstuck. He slammed into at least 5 other riders trying to get through. Well the idiot started to come up the hill and there was maybe a 2 foot gap between my qaud and some trees and the moron slammed my quad knocked the trees down and went another 10 feet before flipping his quad and it rolled back down onto mine smashing into it knocking my radiator hose off draining all my antifreeze. NOW I AM IRATE!!!!!!!!!!! I throw the idiots quad off of mine and try to get my radiator hose back on quick enough but ITS TOO LATE, DAMAGE IS DONE! I know I am out. This kid is wearing jeans and a teeshirt, has no front fenders on his quad, and is running 18 inch tires and they are completely BALD!! I am like what the $@#$?!!! Did this really just happen to me? Did this kid just jump into the race without registering and felt like racing today? Who knows? But all I know this amateur with no respect for the rest of us riders waiting in line to come up this hill just took me out cuz he dont know how to ride!!! This kid had god on his side from me beating his head in cuz I was just about to when I just figured that I should just get my quad out of the way and off the path so that the other riders can race their race. And do you think this kid would of even said "sorry about that" NO he got back on his quad slammed into 2 other riders and cut the coarse and kept going.
Well after I let my quad cool down for about ten minutes I figured I have to get my quad back to my camp site so I kept on going down the track and came up on yet another bottle neck so I pulled off the side. This time there was 2 ways to go up this hill and there was one way blocked. So the little bit of antifreeze left was boiling out of my quad so figured to shut it off and try to direct traffic. Well after telling the riders where to go a rider flipped his quad on its side and after watching these riders going past this guy flipped over roosting on him and noticed this guy wasnt moving. I ran over to him cuz it looked like he was stuck under his quad but he wasnt, he was just laying there. He said to me " I am paralyzed I cant get up on my quad can you help me?" I freaked out! He calmed me down and told me he has been paralyzed and he races like this , but he needs help back onto his quad. So I flipped his yamaha quad back over and tried to pick him up, but he was just too heavy for me to do it by myself. So I asked this guy who was right in front of him stuck on the hill if he could help me out lifting him up. Would you believe he said " I will only if you help me get unstuck of this hill". I got so mad but kept my cool and we got him back onto his quad. And ya I even helped the kid get unstuck which I should have not but thats the kind of guy I am. So after the bottle neck cleared up me and the paralyzed guy road out and finally got out of the woods. Please if anyone knows who I am talking about let me know who he is. I dont like calling him " The paralyzed guy" I give him huge props for doing what he does and not letting nothing stop him from he loves to do.
So I made it back to my camp site not before I at least got to jump down the "gravity cavity" and then I parked it for the rest of the day. Watching the rest of my race from the side lines. Cuz I found out he also tore the wire off my coolant sensor too and new my fan wouldnt run even if I put antifreeze back in it. I wasnt taking a chance of doing more damage then it already has done.
Well after I calmed down for a little bit me and the wife went down to watch the PM race at the starting line. Wanted to record the first 2 turns and had a perfect spot to watch it. A minute before the race I turned my head over to talk to my wife and I almost had a heart attack to see who was on the other side of my wife and she was taking to her. Traci Cecco. We talked then watched the race start. I thought that was pretty cool. She is a very down to earth woman.
What a awesome PM race it was. Borich battling and finally winning the race. All said and done I was looking at my camera and found a picture that my wife took and it was Borich and Sommers going down the gravity cavity and shows borich still in the air almost to the bottom of it with Sommers right next to him. It was a great shot. I will post it at another time.
So that was my Unadilla GNCC experience this weekend. Alot of it really stunk and some of it was awesome. I realized some riders dont give a crap about others and some riders do. Would I have done things differently? No, it was still memorable. But I know next time I wont enter the class I did just because it was the first race of the year and move on up to the next class. I know that crap happens, but when you prepare so much for something and you have some kid that shows up to a race with what he is wearing and a quad that is obviously no preped for XC racing come and takes me out, it just tans my A% that I was prepared for him. Let me know what you think. Thanks for reading this.
But after we got camp set up I pulled the quad off the trailer, tried to start it and nothing. Kept trying and it just would not fire up. Have an 08 450er by the way. Well I had to walk away from the situation to let the blood flow back down from my head cuz I was seeing Red. SO I went and checked out the Pro Pits and just my luck since it was raining none of the Pros were out. This was around 4:45pm. So I walked back to camp and was gonna try to see whats wrong with my quad, cuz I was not registering if I cant get my quad to start. Well I checked everything and come to find out, my throttle cable at the thumb throttle came loose vibrating on the trip up and knocked my throttle position sensor out of whack. Fixed that and she fired right up. GREAT!!
Went to register and ran into a fellow racers I met last year at the 08 Sommerset GNCC. Things started to get better. Got some supper in me and went over the whole quad. Red and blue loctited every bolt on the quad. She is ready to race! I felt good and went to bed.
Got a good 9 hours of sleep and got out of the tent and to my surprise it stopped raining. My prayers were answered.:D Well me and the wife to a walk down to the Pro Pit's around 8am and stopped to check out a Pro's quad for sale for 10,000$. My wife said " Is he insane! 10,000$ for a quad!!" ( sorry my wife doesnt know better and if she only knew that I had twice that into my quad she would have heart failure, he he) Anyways I looked at the quad and said to her that its Harold Goodman's motocross quad. And all of the sudden I heard "Thats me!" I looked over two feet away is Harold Goodman. Well me and my wife and Harold talked for about 15 minutes and I thought that was pretty darn cool. He is a very down to earth guy. He said he might be leaving Honda cuz they are not paying nothing for the 2010 season for atv riders. All 3 of us thought that was a bunch of bull!! Well no matter how much I would of liked to keep talking to him I had to go get some tearoffs for my spare goggles and get ready for the AM race.
Well I ate a good breakfast and got dressed and me and the wife headed on down to the starting line. Well after sitting for ten minutes at the start I felt the breakfast wanting to come back up cuz I was getting nervous. Thought to myself just calm down, ride a set pace and everything will be fine. I felt better. Well I heard the "10 SECONDS FOR MY CLASS" AND I WAS READY!!! Guess what? I flooded it on the start and was dead last off the line. No biggie, I can make it up through the woods I said to myself.
So I haul butt and catch up to everyone. Alright I am back into the race. I make the pass on 3 guys around this big mudd hole and we are off into the woods. Neck and neck there are 6 of us tire to tire threw this wood section. We come out to this field and I get pass 2 of the 6 and go back into the woods. I am getting covered in mud and I am loving it!! This is racing. Well we come to this valley and there is a huge, I mean huge bottle neck. At least 70 riders all jammed up and I am still at the top of the hill waiting to get down it to get back up the side. Tempers were flaring among the riders thinking they could get around the others stuck on the other side of the hill and when they got stuck too riders were getting mad. Well I finally got down the hill and some riders made a new path up the side of the hill but it was steep and rough with a turn right at the top. The rider in front of me didnt want to try it so she moved out of the way for me and up I go.
The race is on!! I knew I had alot of time to make up but wasnt worrid cuz I knew there was alot of my class was still in that bottle neck. I kept saying ride smart ride smooth. Well we hit part of the motocross track and I started to pass 4 riders who didnt want to hit the jumps. Great I am feeling good. We come back into the woods and there was another bottle neck. Just great! When it was my turn to go up I thought the guy in front of me made it up but I could see all the way up. So I took off up the hill. When I got close to the top I noticed there was one quad in the middle of the hill just sitting there with no rider on it and actually no where to be found and the guy in front of me was blocking the whole path so I tried to knock down a couple little trees to get around him and with no such luck. I got stuck!! And to boot I got my rear tire wedged into a tree which kept me from rolling back down the hill. The other riders behind me knew it was the only way to go up the hill cuz of all the trees were in the way. While I was trying to get my quad out from the tree I saw this rider trying to get around all the riders waiting for us to get unstuck. He slammed into at least 5 other riders trying to get through. Well the idiot started to come up the hill and there was maybe a 2 foot gap between my qaud and some trees and the moron slammed my quad knocked the trees down and went another 10 feet before flipping his quad and it rolled back down onto mine smashing into it knocking my radiator hose off draining all my antifreeze. NOW I AM IRATE!!!!!!!!!!! I throw the idiots quad off of mine and try to get my radiator hose back on quick enough but ITS TOO LATE, DAMAGE IS DONE! I know I am out. This kid is wearing jeans and a teeshirt, has no front fenders on his quad, and is running 18 inch tires and they are completely BALD!! I am like what the $@#$?!!! Did this really just happen to me? Did this kid just jump into the race without registering and felt like racing today? Who knows? But all I know this amateur with no respect for the rest of us riders waiting in line to come up this hill just took me out cuz he dont know how to ride!!! This kid had god on his side from me beating his head in cuz I was just about to when I just figured that I should just get my quad out of the way and off the path so that the other riders can race their race. And do you think this kid would of even said "sorry about that" NO he got back on his quad slammed into 2 other riders and cut the coarse and kept going.
Well after I let my quad cool down for about ten minutes I figured I have to get my quad back to my camp site so I kept on going down the track and came up on yet another bottle neck so I pulled off the side. This time there was 2 ways to go up this hill and there was one way blocked. So the little bit of antifreeze left was boiling out of my quad so figured to shut it off and try to direct traffic. Well after telling the riders where to go a rider flipped his quad on its side and after watching these riders going past this guy flipped over roosting on him and noticed this guy wasnt moving. I ran over to him cuz it looked like he was stuck under his quad but he wasnt, he was just laying there. He said to me " I am paralyzed I cant get up on my quad can you help me?" I freaked out! He calmed me down and told me he has been paralyzed and he races like this , but he needs help back onto his quad. So I flipped his yamaha quad back over and tried to pick him up, but he was just too heavy for me to do it by myself. So I asked this guy who was right in front of him stuck on the hill if he could help me out lifting him up. Would you believe he said " I will only if you help me get unstuck of this hill". I got so mad but kept my cool and we got him back onto his quad. And ya I even helped the kid get unstuck which I should have not but thats the kind of guy I am. So after the bottle neck cleared up me and the paralyzed guy road out and finally got out of the woods. Please if anyone knows who I am talking about let me know who he is. I dont like calling him " The paralyzed guy" I give him huge props for doing what he does and not letting nothing stop him from he loves to do.
So I made it back to my camp site not before I at least got to jump down the "gravity cavity" and then I parked it for the rest of the day. Watching the rest of my race from the side lines. Cuz I found out he also tore the wire off my coolant sensor too and new my fan wouldnt run even if I put antifreeze back in it. I wasnt taking a chance of doing more damage then it already has done.
Well after I calmed down for a little bit me and the wife went down to watch the PM race at the starting line. Wanted to record the first 2 turns and had a perfect spot to watch it. A minute before the race I turned my head over to talk to my wife and I almost had a heart attack to see who was on the other side of my wife and she was taking to her. Traci Cecco. We talked then watched the race start. I thought that was pretty cool. She is a very down to earth woman.
What a awesome PM race it was. Borich battling and finally winning the race. All said and done I was looking at my camera and found a picture that my wife took and it was Borich and Sommers going down the gravity cavity and shows borich still in the air almost to the bottom of it with Sommers right next to him. It was a great shot. I will post it at another time.
So that was my Unadilla GNCC experience this weekend. Alot of it really stunk and some of it was awesome. I realized some riders dont give a crap about others and some riders do. Would I have done things differently? No, it was still memorable. But I know next time I wont enter the class I did just because it was the first race of the year and move on up to the next class. I know that crap happens, but when you prepare so much for something and you have some kid that shows up to a race with what he is wearing and a quad that is obviously no preped for XC racing come and takes me out, it just tans my A% that I was prepared for him. Let me know what you think. Thanks for reading this.