BriarcliffMx
PR Founding Father
The Kevin Ott track thread got me thinking, it was about this time 10 years ago that a friend and I broke ground on what would become Briarcliff Mx. Mike Goslin was a friend of mine who at the time raced and rode quads a little bit here and there, and he owned his own excavation company. Well after 7 weeks of clearing, dropping trees, and pushing off brush, we had somewhat of the limits the big track defined. I would be willing to bet that I still did nearly as much clearing that was done in the initial 7 weeks over the past 10 years. Between the big pond, the entire ten pack area, the area behind the starting gate, the trails, and various other misc. areas, I have dropped over 300 trees, and pushed countless yards of dirt since the intial part was done in 2003. Mike Goslin era left as fast as it came. Mike needed to focus on his business, and politley bowed out of continuing at the Cliff. The place sat idle in 2004. Nothing happened. Then in 2005, an i ran into an old friend who began helping us when he came over to put a driveway in for the my house that was being built; Travis Hartshorn. I showed him the outline of the track, and what had been done in 2003, he immediately wanted to create some cool stuff out here. He started hauling out equipment from work, this was May of 2005, possibly June. At the very same time another friend of mine, Jeff Emery, wanted to help as well, so right around July 4th weekend, we had two dozers sitting there. I had very limited time on any machine at the point at all, not even a tractor, but I knew these machines were here to build stuff, so i turned the key and began to learn. Naturally I chose the 700 deere, a good choice indeed. With still alot of help from these guys, the first BC big track was carved out and tested for a private July 4th riding party in 2005. We later opened it up around the first weekend in October 2005 for the first official public practice.....and it grew from there. Eight years later we continue to improve and refine what we do every single day. Its amazing to me to recount all of the things we have overcame in such a short amount of time, lots of friendships made, bridges burned, amazing things have happened, bad days come and go, good track layouts, bad ideas, lucky days, rainy days, sweaty days. We started with one orange handled shovel, and I mean absolutley nothing else, but farm ground and a boat load of help from volunteers and friends. Its was grown from nothing, and the seed was planted ten years ago at about this time. Thank you everyone.
