A "GP" Race to Remember!

NQ1965

PR Elite
Attended my first GP race at Fast Traxx in Nelsonville, OH yesterday. Wow....what a track, and what a day !

I had ridden the Fast Traxx motocross track before on a practice day, probably 5 years ago, and remembered the dirt well. Admittedly I sort of had a preconceived notion about the GP track lacking natural elevation changes and figured in my mind that it likely had too many unexciting flat field type turns, only broken up by the few times the course crossed over the levy in places, and of course parts of the MX course mixed in. Uh.... yep, I was wrong. . .

I'm not sure I could of picked a better day for my first GP race there. On and off rains from last week and Saturday made for a very labor intensive 11:00oclock Session racing Decade Class. I've never shied away from a good mud race, but it certainly put us to the test. The track did begin to develop some good lines and ruts with each passing lap, but man, it was lines and ruts for most of the course!

There was plenty of bike/rider carnage in the turns and even some straight sections, with only the best plowing through with any momentum. With several wipe-outs myself, I had to use up a lot of energy just to get the bike upright and going again. It was a tough race, nonetheless, I still enjoyed it, as did others. We were all smiling with mud covered faces.

Had an enjoyable time visiting with folks and friends between sessions, but had a lot of work to do to get the trusty CR250 ready for the 3:00 session. There was also the usual encouragement and supportive praise from KO1 and Jeffro667 going into my 50+ class race, and they assured me that the track will be in much improved shape and I should expect nothing less than top results. :rolleyes:

With a comfortable 72 degrees and sunny skies, the flag was thrown for us Vet class races to do our stuff. The 3:00 session was considerably faster and I never went down again, save for a few unbalanced bobbles.

The ruts and lines had further developed, and hardened as they dried, but man there sure was a lot of them. The best description I can use is this: I enjoy a tough track that slows even the best riders down, so long as you can still keep momentum. I like ruts, berms, breaking bumps, jumps, holes, G-outs, wash's, manageable hills and inclines. But this track had it all, and it required you're best every second if you wanted to stay on the lead lap. 50 Minutes of hard and intense racing at it's best.

For me it was one of those tracks that I was more pleased with myself that I hung in there, raced hard and survived than I was about how well I finished.

With my burger, fries and coke, I drove the 1 hour trip home, smiling ear to ear with nothing going on but the thoughts of how good of time I had today Racing at Fast Traxx.
 
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Thanks Brian. Yea, do one you'll enjoy it.

I'd also like to plug that Pitracer regular Jeffro667 and his factory looking KTM 2 stroke, dominated our 50+ class race with a 1st place win. And that was after having a bad start.
He's like an unstoppable Machine on a bad race course!
 
Thanks Brian. Yea, do one you'll enjoy it.

I'd also like to plug that Pitracer regular Jeffro667 and his factory looking KTM 2 stroke, dominated our 50+ class race with a 1st place win. And that was after having a bad start.
He's like an unstoppable Machine on a bad race course!

Jeffro is like lightning ... not much warning ...then zap, ya better look quick ! ...he's gone.
 
Again NQ1965, you really need to come back on a better day so you can enjoy the entire track. You got the weather shortened, not much variety version yesterday.

Hershey would love the new mulch pile!
 
Yea, more examples of how much I underestimated the place.

The mulch pile whoop section was one of my favorite spots on the track and I was wishing it was about 4 time's longer in length. There seems to be quite a variety of soil's, from hard packing clay, regular garden variety dirt, to bog type loam. Adding the river beach's and other track sections in the mix makes for a very unique race track and experience.

Sundays racing conditions were difficult, but after my 50+ race, I realized with sobering clarity that my skills would develop considerably if more of my races challenged me in the way Fast Traxx did.

When we started racing a few years ago, I never imagined we'd be making so many trips to the Nelsonville/Athens area, and that I would be racing something beside MX, but we're hooked on GP's. ( And I'm still no fan of Hare Scrambles or CC's, even though we do race a few.)

The next race is on our schedule.
 
Mike, what other GP races are you hitting? I want to make sure I am aware of what is out there, because they seem to get no press prior to their events.
 
Yea Brian, it's almost like GP racing is ahead of it's time. People love it, but it just hasn't quite developed the popularity yet.

Action Sports in Athens (The Plains) is top on the list, it's a great track and Nancy love's it there. (but that's a bit of a haul for you).

I would like to race the GP's at COCR in Sugar Grove if they'll not schedule them on the same day as everybody else's. I'm also not sure how much time and effort they'll put into their course either, as it takes a lot of layout and prep work to run a GP well.

And I would love it if we could pull together enough confirmed yes's that Jeremy would again consider running a GP at Briarcliff. His layout and woods loops are ideal for a really great and fun GP. But understandably, he needs numbers, not "Maybe's".

I haven't begun to look at the GP's up in your neck of the woods yet because we're working on our regular, and Vintage/PV motocross racing agenda as well. (full schedule this year).

It would be great to have something either in the Central Ohio area or between the Central and N.E.-Ohio region so we all can hit it easily and have big turnouts.
 
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I ran the GP at Briarcliff a few years ago and thought it was great. Easily the best of the GP tracks in OMA that year. I might make it down to one at Action Sports. I will check their schedule. Thanks for the info!
 
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Action had to cancel their most recent scheduled race, and the next one on the schedule isn't until July 16th.
We're hoping he'll throw up a rescheduled race date before then.
 
I'd also like to plug that Pitracer regular Jeffro667 and his factory looking KTM 2 stroke, dominated our 50+ class race with a 1st place win. And that was after having a bad start.
He's like an unstoppable Machine on a bad race course!

After you let Jeff know that the track was "perfect", even this photo couldn't dissuade him.
2016-05-24 22.25.10.jpg


When he gets the holeshot, he can disappear quickly. I caught a brief glimpse of him at a Fast Traxx start, years ago.
start 07.jpg
 
Good Pic's. ... (what's not to like about that top one? :rolleyes:)

I usually like to study the race results numbers afterwards to see how I stacked up against the leaders, and Fast Traxx has the results up already.

There were 6 of us in 50+. Jeffro667 took 1st place, and I claimed last.
We all finished on the lead lap.
Jeffro's finish time .........40:19
NQ's (mine) finish time.....47:15

No argument that coming in 6.93 minutes behind the leader in a race is not a something to really brag about, yet I am still happy that realistically, at Fast Traxx, over a 4 lap race,... that only put me back less than half a track length on the final lap. And I was on a 17 year old Honda CR.

If my math is correct, Jeffro667 averaged " 104 sec./per lap " faster than me, on a track that I've raced on once, (earlier that day) in extremely rough conditions.
I would of been bummed if I didn't get the white flag, but I did, and that helped me to push like hell on the last lap. And I was only 25 seconds behind the 5th place finisher.

That was 3 days ago, and I'm still stoked and smiling ear to ear.
" I Love Vet Class Racing ! "
 
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I raced a Fast Traxx "secret" GP race a few years back with Hershey and it was pretty fun. Some of the sections were a little tight for me but overall I thought it was really fun.

The TVLand GP is really one of the most fun courses in Ohio, but that's a really far drive for you Cbus folks.

The most fun GP/Cross Country race I've ever done is at Gatorback in Florida. Awesome course, lots of elevation and multiple soil types. And not overly tight.
 
Looks like you were heading back to the pits in this shot while everyone else was racing???

Well, after starting from the outside by the fence, arriving at the first turn to find a freshly watered spot, l believe I was putting my foot out and eyeing the berm to help me negotiate that left hander. Or I was going to pull off and let everyone pass like I did this past Sunday. :)
 
I raced a Fast Traxx "secret" GP race a few years back with Hershey and it was pretty fun. Some of the sections were a little tight for me but overall I thought it was really fun.

The TVLand GP is really one of the most fun courses in Ohio, but that's a really far drive for you Cbus folks.

Would that be the secret, very rare two HP14 in attendence, turn around every other tree, warm and humid, monkey butt inducing, FT GP from a few years ago?

TVLAND needs GP/Jet Ski combo day.
 
Jack is working and running the AMA Dual sport next weekend in PA... factory Husaberg ride in the AMA box van!!! I am planning to join him on my DRZ .
 
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