Observations from Mount Morris
MAY 30, 2007
Makita Suzuki's Ricky Carmichael swept both motos at High Point. photo: Matt Ware
By Steve Matthes
The track was epic this weekend. Great soil conditions, great
traction—not that rutty—and awesome weather made for a great day of
racing. As a matter of fact, Tim Ferry, who has done 546,328 laps around Mt. Morris told me that Sunday morning practice was the best he has ever seen this track and he had a lot of fun riding.
Man, it’s a good thing that RC is only doing six nationals
this year because Team Stewart would not be as laid back as I saw them
on Sunday night. RC came from about seven seconds back to reel James
in and pass him for the first moto win. In the second moto, RC holeshot
and checked out. It was an unbelievable ride by RC yet again. I saw him
almost eat poop off the same double that claimed Stewie last year but,
as usual, he just kept it pinned and recovered. James was nowhere to be
found after the race but I got these words from James Sr: “I'm
always happy. This is Big James! This is me. I’m always happy. You guys
know that. Everybody knows Big James. I'm always happy.”
I’m no Gary Bailey, but you could see that holding it wide
open and flat landing the finish line jump was faster, yet only RC was
doing it. I was watching with former national runner-up David Pingree
and asked him why all the dudes don’t do that. He told me that it wears
you out after 30-minutes and to check out RC’s head when he landed. So
I did and it looked like a bobble-head on fast forward when he hit the
ground. I guess that’s why.
It appears that Ben Townley to Honda is a done deal.
Despite what people are saying, hee is going to join the Red Riders
next year and will be wearing Fox gear and Oakley goggles. This is
pretty much for sure from what I hear. But I could be wrong—it
certainly wouldn’t be the first time.
Moose Racing’s Bobby Garrison raced the WORCS off road
series last week (getting second place) and this week spent $1,100 in
gas to get to Mt Morris and race the National. He is a multi-talented
rider who went 26-21 to win about $500 of that back. That’s cool to see
him crossing over like that. It also made me giggle listening to Jason “The Weege” Weigandt call him “the notorious number sixty-nine.”
I went to the Racer X offices on Friday for an open
house; I think it would be a cool place to work. (Yes, I’m a huge
suck-up.) Seriously, I’m not just saying that, it’s kind of a
mini-Primm museum, lots of memorabilia everywhere and the place used to
be an old furniture store so there are tons of little rooms everywhere.
I met Bryan Stealey for the first time and he was a real neat guy. Andy Bowyer
said he still had to “talk” to me in regards to what I wrote about
NASCAR. Something about meeting him in an alley. I was let down a bit
after I was shown DC’s office. I expected to see an office like Tony Montana
had in Scarface complete with a big ass “The World is Yours” golden
globe. What I actually saw was action figures and a laptop.
Another unbelievable thing is that DC lets “Bad” Billy Ursic and Mike Farber work right across from each other. Lots of production coming out of there.
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Josh Grant has found himself in title contention after two rounds, taking the overall at Mount Morris with 1-3 moto scores. |
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photo: Matt Ware |
Later that night, the RXI guys threw a little shin-dig down at Bent Willys, a local watering hole. What, was Mario’s Fishbowl all booked up? It was fun to listen to The Weege conserve his voice singing A-HA’s Take on Me. They had a balcony that all the cool people were out on and I couldn’t get in because it was full. I was looking in trying to get somebody’s attention when Leticia Cline just blew past the line and joined all the cool people. Seriously, I was trying all night to get in there and when Scott Sepkovic finally got me through (only cause I was with Cudby and Ping), I realized that all the cool people went somewhere else. To top it all off, Morgantown’s finest issued me a parking ticket when national title winning mechanic Joe Mauer let the meter run out. It was for $5; yes, five whole dollars. There was an option to go to trial on there but I think I’ll cut my losses and just pay it.
Ivan Tedesco is also not coming back to Suzuki and this is one I cannot figure out. All these riders nowadays want to be “the man” on their teams. If Ivan stayed at Suzuki, he would be their number one focus and it would, theoretically help him. He is not having a good year but will be back at Southwick. Who is Suzuki talking to? Well, a friend of mine who has some connections says that Roger DeCoster is trying to get Josh Coppins signed to an outdoor-only deal.
Parts Unlimited’s Rob Buydos was a busy guy at Mt Morris;
he was doing his usual all day announcing and also had a vintage bike
show after the day’s events. After all that, he runs the mini-bike
races at night. The Legends Lap was his idea and he really worked the
phones to get all the bikes and the guys there. The bike show was cool;
Jeff Stanton, Gary Semics, Steve Lamson, Mike Bier and Chuck Sun
were the judges. They all voted on a pristine BSA as best in show.
I was back as a mechanic this weekend … well, kind of. I was “nominated” to help get a 1993 KX 500 ready for Mike Fisher
to ride his legends lap. It was a little bit of work getting the tires
hooked up by Bridgestone, putting on the numbers, plastics, bars and
scrubbing the pipe to get rid of the 14 year old rust on it. For the
record, I am out about $22 for supplies on this thing, I guess that
makes me part owner of this Legends tour. If any readers out there want
to get some guys out at Red Bud and Steel City, write in to me and tell
me who you want to see and I will get Rob to work it out.
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A few broken spokes couldn't slow Ben Townley down. The Kiwi came from DEAD last to salvage points and finish tenth. Then he came out in he second moto and spanked everyone. |
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photo: Matt Ware |
Look at the list of riders that I have tuned for: Shaun Kalos, Danny Smith, Ty Birdwell, Tim Ferry, Kelly Smith, Nick Wey, Ricky Carmichael, Mike Fisher and Roger DeCoster. Well, the last three I didn’t really work a full season for. As I explained earlier, I did hook up Fisher’s bike but I also put pipes and silencers on RC and RD’s bikes. They didn’t fall off or anything! Mitch Payton said that he would hire me based on that list alone because he “looks for big name riders on resume.” They don’t get any bigger than that Payton.
All the Legends doing one lap around the track was seriously the best part of the day for me. Seeing Broc Glover in his original gear and just mingling with Mike Fisher and Jeff Stanton beforehand was great. All the guys were pumped to get love from the fans and almost all of them jumped the uphill double. It was pretty amazing that RC took his stock suspended, Matthes-tuned RM 250 and did the big uphill triple. DeCoster couldn’t get enough of the fans adulation and did one and a half laps. After Mike Fisher and Steve Lamson did their one laps they both came in and were talking about the track and how sweet it is; how their bikes worked. These guys loved doing it and the fans loved seeing them. Rob is going to try and get some more big names for the Red Bud Legends Lap. Get your tickets now!
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High Point wasn't too kind to Dusty Klatt. The Star Racing Yamaha rider fell down twice in the first moto and finished 25th and then in the second moto had a mid-pack start before finishing 15th. |
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photo: Matt Ware |
The battle for the Stanley Cup started Monday night with Anaheim taking the win over Ottawa and I really, really hope the Anaheim Ducks win. I have all my family and Canadian buddies asking me, “Don’t you want a Canadian team to win?” I have news for you people: no matter what, Canadians are going to win the cup with some Euro’s sprinkled in. I hope Chris Pronger cheese-boards Alfredsson into the boards. Ducks in three games; the other game will be forfeited by the greasy Senators because they can’t handle it. Remember, Leafs in ’08!
How about Josh Grant? After a miserable SX season, he goes out and wins this weekend. He rode a smart race, and has proved after the first two rounds that he is going to be up there all summer. It looks like Ryan Hughes training is paying off for Josh, let’s hope he forgets the part Ryno teaches him about self-destructing.
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Matthes made sure Mike Fisher's `93 KX500 was ready to go for the Legends Lap at Mount Morris. |
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photo: Steve Van Zylun |
Drank a total of 11 Monster Energy Java coffee drinks this weekend. I really love these drinks but I don’t think they are good for my figure. I need to cut back but every sip is a taste explosion in your mouth. Scott “Agent to the stars” Sepkovic told me he read my column and he is the Monster guy and appreciated what I said. I started dreaming of Java drinks and mini-fridges everywhere in my house until I also remembered that he is Jason Lawrence’s agent so my dream pretty much died right there. Have I told you guys that Jason is really just misunderstood?
The new Racer X Canada came out and I imitated Mike “Icon” Farber by hand delivering the new issue. There was an absolutely fantastic article about Canadian mechanics in the USA written by yours truly and I wanted all the Canucks to get their issue of RXC. So as I was making my rounds, I dropped some off at the MDK truck and DV was very excited to catch up on the Canadian scene. After that I went to Star Racing and didn’t see Dusty “Fu-man” Klatt so I put some on Greg Zaniuk’s toolbox. Only thing is, Greg Zaniuk quit Star Racing last week. Who knew? I guess he went back to the motherland to a new career. Good luck Greg with whatever you are going to do in Canmore, AB.
Man, I’m not sure what was up with last weeks Observations from Hangtown column but it received over 5,600 hits (Did I happen to mention we are looking for a sponsor for this thing?) and a whole bunch of mail generated from it. As well, just walking around the pits it seemed that everybody reads it. That’s cool and I’m pumped that people actually think this is good, well, most people do. I got a couple of ugly emails giving me hell for saying that I didn’t like the Nationals. I did say this, but what I meant was that they were a ton of work as a mechanic in some tough conditions, and now that I just wanna hang out and make jokes, all my old friends are too busy. Add in the fact that I’m lazy and that’s what I meant when I said I didn’t like them. I do enjoy outdoor racing very much as it isn’t about bike set-up and precision, lots of times it just boils down to who has the biggest balls. Or in the WMA case, the biggest ovaries.
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Broc Glover was outfitted with his original JT Racing gear at High Point. |
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photo: Steve Matthes |
I got an email from none other then the Dogger last week. If you don’t know who the Dogger is, please google him, I’ll wait … (Do-dee-do) … ok, ready? Ronnie was giving me some props and says he reads this column every week. About the only thing that would top this is if Rollerball knocked on my door and wanted to go riding with me. Thanks, Dogger, for making my life complete. If having Ron Lechien set aside time each week to read my column isn’t enough for someone to sponsor my column, I don’t know what is.
Motoworld Yamaha’s Branden Jesseman tweaked his already sore knee and didn’t start either moto. He is getting an MRI done on Tuesday and it doesn’t look good for Southwick. This team is struggling so far in the outdoors; they are now down to one rider, Ryan Beat. You know what though? Who cares, they won a supercross this year, how many teams can say that?
Motoworld Racing’s owner Paul Lindsey confirmed this week to amamotocross.com that his team is folding up next year. This would be news except for the fact that I and others reported this around the Detroit round. The mechanics were asking around for jobs in ’08 back around the middle of supercross and pretty much everybody in the pits knew this was happening.
Also on amamotocross.com, it was reported that somebody says James Stewart wants to do SX-only in 2008. This isn’t going to happen people. James’ contract goes until the end of next year and he has to honor it. I highly doubt that Kawasaki is going to just let him race a half season because he feels like it. I asked around and some people in Stewie’s camp just laughed. I don’t think there is anything at all to this rumor. Now, in 2009, we’ll see.
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James Stewart just couldn't match the pace of RC. |
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photo: Matt Ware |
If you’re Kurt Nicoll at Factory Red Bull/KTM and your very highly paid riders scores are 11-8-15-22-16-26-33-36-37-38, do you jump in front of a moving train in Morgantown or wait until you get home? I honestly think that right now, Kurt could put on the Wulfsport and beat the crap out of his team.
In other KTM news, they are going to get MDK to be the official Lites team. They have Justin Brayton signed up, and KTM gets to add another rider and MDK gets to put two guys on the team. They don’t have a manager yet and if they aren’t talking to Paul Lindsey, they should be.
Maybe Drew Gosselaar will be one of the riders? He has shown some speed but crashed at Mt Morris and separated his shoulder, which might require surgery. What is it with Chris and Drew? Can you imagine if their dad Mike put RC’s bike together like his kids ride? It would be super fast but would explode three laps in. On a serious note, if Pops is Goose and Chris is Lil’Goose what is Drew? Duckling? Super-little Goose?
In yet more MDK news, they are seriously probably one of the coolest pits to hang out in. Nick Wey and DV12.com are old pros by now, they are casual and Brent and Scotty the mechanics are great guys, if you don’t know Brent you would probably want to drug test him, because he’s just a little high strung. Steve Lamson is one of the nicest guys around and is always ready with a story about the old days. The team realizes that nobody in the pits is curing cancer and they all seem to love their jobs.
I heard that Nick Wey rode the second moto with a Rising Sun jersey, a mid-80s gear company owned by Chuck Sun. I need to see a picture of this immediately if this is true.
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Jeff Stanton's 1992 CR250 awaits the Legends Lap. Matthes says this bike is trick; it has an HRC cylinder (whatever that means). |
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photo: Steve Matthes |
Did you know there is no longer a Chuck Sun tabletop at Washougal? They made some drastic changes to the track, which were needed but if my throttle sticks on my CR480 and I land 200 feet down the track I would always want to have a jump named after me.
Like I was telling you guys, people are reading this thing, so now when I am talking to people, I get the whole “Don’t write this but … ” Or the “I can’t tell you anything—I’ll read it on the internet!” Where I screwed up was I should’ve written this observations thing under an alias. Then nobody would know who was doing it and I would continue to get all the really good scoops. Like “Observations from Mt Morris by El Diablo” sounds cool. But I didn’t think of that, so now look for me by the end of the season to report on what Ferry ate for breakfast and how many Monster Java’s I drank. Should be fascinating.
84-year-old Barry Carsten showed up and riding his Bromeley Suzuki, MSR, Scott, Arai, DG…. No, wait, I’m reading his sponsor list from 1987! He runs FMF now, but only because DG doesn’t make dirt bike pipes anymore. He got a 17th in the second moto and is only another top twenty finish away from getting his 54th National number. Go get’em, Bear-Dog!
I went on the Racer X webcast again this weekend. This time
I was actually on for a while and was quite witty, if I do say so
myself. I talked about Rollerball, Tim Ferry, Canadian Nationals, the
Canadian exchange rate and how incredible RC is. I enjoy doing these
and feel lucky that somebody thinks my opinion is somewhat valued. I
can’t wait to get roasted on Mototalk for something dumb I said. Or
maybe they will be too busy bitching about the free webcast crashing
once in a while. Hey, guys, how would you like to go back to waiting
for three days for your Cycle News race report?
Moto XXX/Moose Racing had a good day/bad day kind of day. The good parts were Josh Summey getting tenth and Yoshihide Fukudome getting his first points with a 19th in the second moto. The bad parts were Kyle Lewis
knocking himself silly and DNF’ing both motos, Fukudome crashing in the
first turn and DNF’ing the first moto and Summey’s bike breaking in the
second moto while running in 12th. Dirt Rider magazine is riding the
team’s bikes on Monday at Mt Morris so Alan Brown has some bent up bikes to fix for Jimmy Lewis and the guys. On another note, the hamburgers this weekend were fantastic and they had a much better selection of condiments.
This is an actual conversation between myself, Timmy and Evie Ferry in between practice sessions on Sunday morning:
Evie: (Singing Kelly Clarkson song)
Me: “She’s really kind of ballooned up this year” (Like I am one to talk)
Timmy: “The problem with her, is, she doesn’t know what she
wants to be. One week she’s Pink, the next week she’s country, and then
sometimes she’s Britney Spears.”
Evie: “There’s a little Celine Dion in there, too.”
Timmy: “Yeah, for sure, a little Celine.”
Evie: “The problem with her is she’s not Canadian.”
Me: “So you think that Kelly Clarkson didn’t deserve to win American Idol?”
Timmy: “Um … I think that one guy, the Japanese guy should’ve won it.”
Me: “William Hung?”
Timmy: “Yeah, he was cool.”
I actually recorded this for the fans; I’m such a loser. The next time
you see the MX media’s favorite photo of Stewie sitting in the doorway
of the truck with eight green shirts surrounding him, they may be
discussing Dancing with the Stars.
Ryan Dungey “And Dragons” said that he has never ridden the Mt Morris track, then went out and got a fourth. BT, RV, Grant, J-Law and Dungey are separating themselves from the pack in the early rounds.
I just wrote about Dungey so I could put that nickname in use first. Thought you might want to know that.
I would seriously rather eat a poop sandwich than have to talk to Tony Alessi. He was at the Racer X
get together and I overheard some crazy man talk. I don’t want to
repeat it because I didn’t hear the whole story. I have no problem with
Mike or Jeff, they seem like normal, goofy kids. I didn’t
appreciate Mike calling me “Dave” a whole bunch. It seems that he has
mistaken me for Dave Dye, Chad Reed’s old mechanic and not nearly as handsome of a man as I am.
Not much to write about in regards to Dusty “Fu-man” Klatt’s day. He
crashed a couple of times in the first moto and got 25th. In the second
race, he didn’t have a great gate pick from his times in practice and
got out around mid-pack, eventually finishing 15th. I spoke with him a
bit before the first moto and told him I would get him some Ste-Julie
results, but Danny Brault and Brett Dailey ignored my text messages thereby maybe costing me my friendship with DK. Thanks, guys!
Doug DeHaan had a good day; I don’t think it’s a coincidence that he
scored a couple of top twenty motos after moving back to the
motherland.
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Chuck Sun's CR480. |
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photo: Steve Matthes |
I really like Troy Adams; he’s a nice guy and a really good rider. Now having said that, what in darn tooting is going on with him? He needed to get off the Lites bike because he’s too big and I thought he would be doing much better so far. His bike broke one moto in Hangtown but he hasn’t scored any points in the other three motos. With his team and skill, he is capable of so much more. Do you hear that creaking noise Troy? That’s your window closing.
In the 450 “B” race, Davi Millsaps won with a 4-3 beating Timmy Ferry’s 3-4. I have no clue what Millsaps story is, but Ferry said that he took too long to get going in the second moto and Andrew Short held him up for a few laps, costing him some seconds. Red Dog also said that he needs to improve his starts as Davi holeshot both motos. I was a key part of this 3-4 as I got a call on Wednesday asking to help the big one-five with his helmets. So I had to change out liners, clean the helmet and dry gloves. The pay wasn’t that good as later that night I tried to give the pizza guy one of Timmy’s “Good job, Matthes’” for payment, but he still wanted cash.
Millsaps did have a sweet, retro looking No Fear Honda jersey on though.
This just in—Broc “Dick” Tickle is the real deal and looks great out there; two races in and two top tens proves that he has a good future in the sport. Look for him to start getting offers for next year anytime. The “silly season” is like the “new gear season;” they start earlier and earlier every year.
Former Canadian national #2 holder, Gavin Gracyk continued his strong rides with 12-12 scores. Good to see him back and going good again.
Factory Yamaha’s Josh Hill needs to get in better shape. He looks a little big out there, and I hear the Yamaha guys are on him to lose some weight. The real proof that he isn’t that fit is the fifth to tenth fade in the second moto. On lap nine, he dropped almost six seconds from the previous lap and never recovered. The difference between his best time and his worst? 13 seconds! That’s too much; if you throw that one time out it’s still 12 seconds.
I think I saw Billy Laninovich scouring the Help Wanted section in the local paper. What is his deal this year? Factory bike, a great team behind him and he is just not getting it done. Maybe he’s hurt or something.
I see that Paul Carpenter managed to beat JSR in the opening round of the Canadian Nationals. That’s impressive that he did that and now we will see what JSR is made of. Should be a great series! Wonder if the Maritimers held a national holiday for Mitchell Cooke getting third? Do they even know that he got third, has the carrier pigeons made it there yet?
That was hella-sweet to get all that mail last week, so again, if you have someone you want to see do the Legends Lap, just want to tell me I suck or that I’m pretty much the best writer you’ve ever read email letters@racerxcanada.com.
