Steve Matthes’ Observations from Red Dog’s
NOVEMBER 20, 2007 By Steve Matthes

If you’re a regular reader that sends me emails making fun of my friendship with Tim Ferry, telling me that I need to stop kissing his butt, then you might want to stop right here and keep on surfing somewhere else.

Why? Because this past week I was out in Florida researching a story for RXI and helping out my friend, Tim, with his career. Oh yeah, that’s right, I said career. You see, his regular house mechanic got a job working at Pro Circuit for Christophe Pourcel (good luck with that!), but his new mechanic doesn’t start for two weeks so Timmy asked me if I wanted to come out and help him with the standard bike/track work. It couldn’t have come at a better time, as I need to get something to you guys to justify Merge Racing Technologies sponsorship of this column—and for giving me a job (thanks again!) I’m back baby!  I thought to myself, “Self, would the readers of Racer X Canada and Racer X be interested in reading what I did for a week in Florida? Would they be into seeing what goes on at the Ferry compound and learn what would happen if I ended up leaving his rear axle loose?” So obviously I thought the answer was yes and without further adieu….

(All of you dudes sitting there drinking your “Haterade” about my friendship with the big one-five: can you just lay off this week please? I‘m in a fragile state these days.)

How would you like to look out your door and see this? Moto-heaven, for sure. Well, maybe not a supercross track; that would be ambulance heaven for most of us.

Saturday: Arrive in Tampa and get picked up by Timmy in his new Toyota Tundra.  How’s that for supporting the sport? What a guy! (If some of you have just thrown up in your mouth, I completely understand.) We drive out to the ranch in central Florida and I begin to get him ready for the week from hell that I am going to put him through. Think of me as Apollo Creed’s trainer after The Mick dies in Rocky 3. He whipped Rocky into shape after his beat down at the hands of Mr. T.

Sunday: No riding today; just some bike work and track prep. One thing that was cool was his practice track getting redone. I walked out there, and even though I would probably break every bone in my body attempting to jump anything, it made me want to ride. There’s nothing like a brand new track to get your heart rate going. That and pictures of Eva Mendes straddling my bike in my garage with Timmy’s jersey on. (I’m kidding. Seriously, like I would want her in my garage.) We did rent a couple of movies. We Are Marshall and some Bruce Willis/Halle Berry movie. The Marshall movie was all right but I couldn’t stop the Hollywood cheese from flowing out of the speakers. The Willis movie … not so good. I give it 2 and a half wrenches out of 5.

LORETTA’S CORNER: This is up in Timmy’s gym/self-adulation room. These represent the six Loretta Lynn titles he won 30 years ago. He came out of Loretta’s with six titles and went straight into an RRP privateer ride. Think that would happen nowadays?

Monday: Cue some Survivor music here like Eye Of The Tiger or maybe that one from Rocky V: Two Worlds Collide, Rival Nations. Is it East vs. West, or Man against Man?” That was a good one.

Okay, whatever, training week has begun. I get up early and go out and water the track. Red Dog has a bitching automatic sprinkler system but it doesn’t throw that much water down and it takes a while. Nothing like hauling around some fire hoses to get the blood pumping! I lay down some water concentrating on the faces of the jumps and tops of whoops. Once again, I’m kidding.

His riding buddies show up on time to help break the track in. First, Troy Adams, who is riding supercross for the first time in three months pulls in. Troy just got a ride with Carey Hart’s Hart and Huntington team and received his CRF450 just a few days ago. He has no tattoos yet but I’m sure they’re coming. Jason Thomas is a regular at the Ferry compound and shows up to lay down some laps too.

The gladiators get suited up and take to the track for some warm ups. The whoops are big and nasty and Troy is looking really good in them. He’s actually hauling ass but has the lung capacity of my grandma right now (and she’s passed away). He’ll get better and is just feeling out the bike and supercross again. Jason is his usual little engine-that-could self, by that I mean he won’t impress anyone with raw speed but he can lay down 100 laps at the same speed while other guys wear out. Timmy rides like he’s ready for Anaheim already, looking smooth and, do I need to say, that the bike is performing flawlessly?

The guys do two 20-lap sessions with some riding in between for fun. Well, actually, Troy did a five-lapper and then a 10-lapper while he builds himself up. But those five laps were pretty fast!

I took the best lap times anyone has ever seen as well. Top notch button pushing if I do say so myself.

Here they are: the American Gladiators! That’s Turbo, Nitro and Laser. Don’t they look thrilled to pose for me?

After the day is over Timmy, Evie (wife) and Evan (their 3 year old son) go to the mall to see about getting new phones. While they are looking into it I am put in charge of watching Evan at the kid’s playground. You have to be a well-rounded man friend; it’s not just about making sandwiches and doing laptimes. Sometimes, the kid needs watching as well. The Ferry’s end up getting Blackberry’s and I quickly remind them that they are a Canadian company. I repeat this fact many, many times over the next 24 hours. Remember what I said about man friends? Well, you also have to put the numbers into your rider’s phone while he’s driving home, that’s all part of the job.

Tuesday: Another ride day. I get up early and water the track again. You’ll notice that is a reoccurring theme this week; my name should just be changed to “Waterboy” as that is what I do quite a bit.

The same crew shows up again with another one of Timmy’s buddies who used to race pro, Kenneth Jones. Kenneth has had some bad injuries over the years and just rides for fun on the outdoor track. He apparently doesn’t mind that the track is drier than a popcorn fart.

The training pattern is repeated, but Troy already does 10 hard laps instead of the five. He’s still looking really good; it’s his first year in the Supercross (ugh) class so he has a lot to prove. He has a lot of talent in my eyes, but has been on some bad teams in the last few years. Did I mention that his ride is for supercross-only? And that he’s looking for a Canadian team to do the outdoors? And that he’s really fast? Okay, good.

JT pulls out of one of the 20’s with a burnt clutch and Timmy finds a new way to do this rhythm section by jumping on and off a tabletop. It’s a little faster and a lot scarier and I’m glad it’s not me jumping it.

Here is Red Dog’s white dog. She and I bonded this week.

After riding, JT tells us that when he was driving down the driveway yesterday, he saw a cow in Timmy’s yard. The neighbor has a herd of cows and at one time let them graze on Ferry’s property; Timmy reported that they kept the grass in top shape. But a cow died one time and the neighbor thought it was Timmy’s fault, so there went the cows and the free grass cutting service. The fact that one was now on the premises got Red Dog very excited so off we went in the Rhino to see if it was still there. Unfortunately, I failed him; I should’ve filled the Rhino up with gas because when we were as far away from the house as possible, we ran out. While we waited for Kenneth to bring us some fuel, Timmy told me that we should knock down some old trees because they were hampering the new ones from growing. Last time I checked, I was not a landscaping service but, hey, what the rider wants, the rider gets. So there I was trying to push this tree over, giving myself a hernia when I noticed that I was now covered in sticky needles. Nice!

After we got going and I picked sticky needles out of my butt crack, we decided to go back to the mall because Timmy needed a new phone again. It seems that the Blackberry was “weird” to work. As a BB guy myself, I told Red that it takes a week or so to get used to a new phone and to give it time and that it’s Canadian. He wasn’t having it, so off we went and I watched Evan again run around and jump off of these play structures again. I wasn’t sure if I should let him so I asked him if Daddy let him do it and he said yeah. Then I asked him if Daddy lets him work on the family’s space shuttle and he said yeah again. Clearly, he was just telling me what I wanted to hear. Luckily, mom and dad came around before he seriously hurt himself and all was good.

Here is a berm that Timmy wanted me to take a picture of real bad. He said I had to include it in my report so that Dirt Wurx can see it and give him a job when he retires. It did look pretty good after he was done. I couldn’t take a pic of my work as this is a PG web site.

Wednesday: Again, water the track and wait for the riders to arrive. By this point the track had three days of riding and I was surprised at how much it broke down. The berms had some good ruts coming out of them and the tabletops had broken away from the guys landing on them. Troy was up to 20 laps today and was slightly faster than JT. It got Jason so mad that he did a 30-lapper after one moto just to work on his skills some more. He is a veteran of the Supercross wars and probably doesn’t appreciate the new kid being a little better. Most of Troy’s advantage came from the whoops; he’s so much taller than JT that he can just hang off the back and pin it. It should be an interesting year with these two friends being so close on and off the track.

Evan loves playing with this toy, he shuns the Ferry toy and the toy rider with “Matthes” spelled the right way to play with “Bobba”. Then he makes him do these horrendous crashes that aren’t far off the real James. I snuck this pic in at Chili’s one night right before Evan grabbed him and smashed him again.

Here’s where the fun begins. The apartment above the race shop was getting some new furniture delivered to it and we needed to move it in. The shop was built for RV storage so there is approximately 374 stairs up to the apartment, or 31 to be precise. Red and I had to move a couch and complete bedroom set out of said apartment and then some bedroom stuff from the house back into the apartment. It sucked. To be sure, you can see the pics to know what I’m talking about. The new couch came and the movers couldn’t get it around the corners and pronounced it “undeliverable.” My plan was to get the couch onto the roof of the Rhino, then hoist it onto the roof and then from the balcony of the apartment, pull it over the railing and into the room. It was, as I kept saying a “slam dunk.” After all I used to move oak furniture for the mighty conglomerate known as the Oak Barn and was somewhat of a moving specialist.

Is this what Robert Plant meant when he wrote “Stairway To Heaven?” These were the stairs I carried heavy furniture up 7,458 times.

Here is what was involved with moving that couch. Slam dunk, I tell’ya!

See the attached cell phone pic to see what kind of a clown show it was, but it did work! As I was telling everyone though, if Red fell off or hurt himself in any way, I was not going to be the one to call Kawasaki or Cycle News with how it happened.

I channeled my inner Simon Cudby and figured you guys would want a riding shot of Red Dog. This is what I can do for you. Maybe I need a strobe? Or some kind of skill in photography?

Thursday: It was a rest day for the guys. I had to do some work on the bike and also wanted to work on the track with the tractor. Now, I have never worked for Dirt Wurx and have limited experience driving one of these things and I think it showed. I tried to fill in ruts and shape some berms and jumps but it ended up looking like some Kurds had bombed it. It’s harder than it looks people! I watered the track again to make it easier to move dirt, and at this point, I was feeling like a fireman, I was hauling so much hose around. JT came by and we watched the Canadian Nationals on DVD and that was pretty funny really. The guy who looked like he spontaneously combusted when his coolant started spewing out at Morden, listening to both of the guy’s opinions on the state of Canadian motocross was interesting to say the least. Once again, Travers and Koster were big hits. Gauldy, not so much. Red Dog thought that Regina track looked fun and Gopher Dunes looked really rough. That got us talking about Ross Pederson at sand tracks. Well, actually, it got me talking about Ross and Timmy and JT fell alseep.

Friday: Ride day again! And you all know what that means: WATER TIME!!!! Except the riding day was pushed back one hour and nobody told the waterboy/mover/kid watcher. So I watered the track for a ten o’clock start time and the other guys showed up at 11. Well, actually Troy showed up as JT was feeling a little under the weather and begged off. So riding started around 11:30 and the track was too dry for the guys. All together now: WATER TIME!!!! I swear I felt like I should’ve been working at Sea World this week. I’m about the size of Shamu so it’s kind of fitting really.

MY WALL: This part of Ferry's trophy room is all plaques he got while aboard a Steve Matthes-tuned Yamaha. I forgot to get the Summercross plaque pic as it was in the house where Evie keeps “The things that are dear to us.”

JT showed up and I applauded him for riding while sick and reminded him that “This was when titles were won.” He told me that he wasn’t going to win any titles this year and I told him that I meant Bali or Pakistan SX titles or wherever else he travels to.

So after all this, the guys did their motos with JT starting first and Troy about 10 seconds later and then Red Dog 20 seconds after that. JT made a couple of mistakes and Troy caught him. It was on! I really thought Troy was going to get him but to JT’s credit, he dug down and despite heavy pressure from Adams, he hung tough for 20 laps and coupled with some mistakes from Timmy, won the main!
 
A good way to end a good week. The guys were on it to be sure. Troy came a long way in a week and showed that he can be a top ten guy if things go right and JT looks better and will always be there in the hunt every week.

Here are the Washington Capitals scoring shortly after “puck time" happened. Pretty good seats, huh? Thanks, Evie!

Evie got us tickets to the Tampa Bay Lightning game that night. How nice was that? We were running a bit late and Timmy asked me if we were going to miss “puck time.” I’m not sure what he meant; I filled him in on the term face-off and resigned myself to a long night explaining icing. He was into the game and even though he’s new to the sport, asked when the last time the Maple Leafs won the cup. Nice. I got to hear it from a guy about “his” team winning and my team sucking. He was even recognized by a couple of SX fans at the game also, so now he thinks hockey is cool. It was a good time and I got a picture to commemorate the occasion.

What is that saying about a picture and a thousand words? Just two buddies enjoying each other’s company. He bought me that cotton candy only after I held my breath until he said yes.

All in all, a good week and lots of fun to be sure. Hope you enjoyed reading this and I will now prepare myself for the onslaught of emails at matthes@racerxcanada.com.