2005 GNCC "Loretta Lynn's" Round #6 Live Coverage

The straight away after the start was also a huge water puddle and most of the riders will be completely soaked before even getting a mile into the race, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see many rider’s machines quit on the start from all the water.

After around ½ mile of fields, the riders will cross the road and head up into the hills and won’t return back down into the bottom and across the road again till the 10 mile marker.

There will be plenty of standing water on the other side of the road, but the rock base will keep it from getting too bad, and the riders will need to worry more about not sliding over the side of one of the steep banks that the track runs along.

There still will be some steep hill climbs included in the track, but the majority of the hills have the riders going down them instead of up, which hopefully will prevent bottlenecks from forming during the race.

Once the riders cross the road at the end of the lap, it will become extremely interesting because the low lying areas are covered in standing water and instead of a rocky soil found in the hills the ground contains more sand and clay which will quickly give way and form some nasty mud holes

The Racer Production crew originally were going to build an obstacle section with rocks and a mud pit, but it wasn’t necessary after all the rain, so they just moved some of the bleachers into the woods for the spectators to sit and watch the riders go through some of the nasty mud sections that will begin to form during the morning race and will be almost impassable by afternoon race.

After checking out the track, I headed back to the Pro Pits to see what some of the riders thought about all of this rain, and I found Ballance brothers checking out the latest GNCC program which featured a full page action shot of Brandon Ballance from Steele Creek.

Bill Ballance was in his normal humorous mood when I snapped a photo of him before a quick interview about the track conditions and his game plan for Saturday's race.

“Its going to be nasty for sure, and I have been training and riding hard since the last race in hopes of it being fast paced, dusty, and hot, but its not going to be that way and its going to be pretty wet out there. It is looking like its going to be a survival race and picking the best lines will be important which isn’t that bad because I would like to take my decision making over anyone else’s out there in the top 10 pits.”

“I came down here with a dry track setup, so I had to change a few things including adding some iRazr on the back to push the Yamaha up the hills and through the ruts which is going to help us a lot. Also, Jimmy is water proofing the Yamaha, so it will be ready for the wet conditions, so instead of heading out there and hanging it wide open and busting it out, we are going to have to use our heads and pick the right lines and get to the finish line first.”

I wish you the best Bill, and thanks for your time.

Brandon Ballance was busy installing some new stickers on his Yamaha before the race, and he now has some awesome looking autograph posters thanks to his sponsor HMF Engineering.

I also asked Brandon what he thought about all of this rain and what effect will it have on the race.

“Its not going to be as bad as many of the riders are expecting her at Loretta Lynn’s because its got a lot of rocky and sandy soil and the rain will be absorbed up really quickly and it will just get whooped out especially along the creek, but there will still be some mud holes, so many of the riders will probably switch to some new tires. The tire selection won’t be that important because of how hard packed the course is at Loretta’s, so tomorrow should turn out to be a great race.”

Thanks for your time, Brandon Ballance.

Chris Borich heads into Loretta's with the points lead after taking the narrow victory over Bill Ballance at Big Buck, and he remains confident as ever when I asked him about Saturday's race in the rain.

"I was expecting that it was going to rain because I have been watching the forecast. I came ready for it, and I feel my Honda will keep me out front tomorrow”

I wish you the best Chris Borich, and thanks for your time.