The weather man sure hit his mark this weekend. Clear skies and beautiful mid-80 degree weather welcomed Amateur and Professional ATV racers to the Steele City raceway. As the points races heat up, the ATVA season moves into round 9. With time winding down, riders are realizing the need for some good finishes to earn top ranks in their class.
As the GNCC recesses during their summer break, Racer productions decided to bring out an extra water truck to keep up with the dust
Sitting in a valley, the terrain offered only flat parking for those anxious riders that showed up early thursday. The track layout looked challanging before anyone even hit the track.
One of the tougest set of jumps began with an uphill double followed by another double. This double "doubled" as a corner. A single into a table top ended the six pack. The intimidation of this corner/ set of jumps left many riders finding a fast route while singling through.
Another set of jumps that had riders puzzled began between the two orange posts. The single into large table top allowed only the fastest riders to downside. A second single into smaller table top popped riders high but gave riders minimal distance to clearn the landing.
The love and respect our sport has for each other is what makes our sport the number one sport in the world. Travis Spader sported a new jersey honoring Todd Vescovi #35.
TS is also sporting a new set up and has been looking faster than ever.
Following a hard crash, a great friend of mine,Anthony Mastrocola lays in UPMC Presbyterian hospital with a broken back. After a hard spill, he was life flighted to the hospital and imediatley underwent surgery. The surgery went well, but it still remains unknown how he will recover, but if he puts half the heart into his recovery as he does to his racing, he will be fine. Saturday night we had dinner and Anthony was stoked having won both the Production C and 265C classes. He was ready to bring home an overall and surley deserved it. Anthony has also been putting in many work hours at Cernics to help build up and equip his new Suzuki 450 with the best equipment. Please keep Anthony in your prayers. I will keep everyone updated with any information that I get. If you would like contact information, please PM me.
This is a shot of Anthony down at the Budds Creek national.
As this weekend marked the inaugural running of the ATVA Steel City national, the press was out in full force capturing all the action. David Schloss, from ATV-Insider magazine, brought along a stock Suzuki to run in the 4-Stroke Stock production class. David will be writing a story on the machine, and what better way to test it than put it in the exact mix it was created for. The original plan may have been an article, but when the gate dropped his mindset changed. A first place plaque and a great testing grounds sure made the trip worthwhile.
Marc Barilla, ATV-Insider's main photographer and graphics design artist, was there to grab some photos for upcoming articles in their publication.
As you may have seen in my previous reports, Wes Miller has had a film crew at each of the ATVA nationals filming for his new documentary series on the whole motocross series. Wes was working some awesome angles on Sunday.