May 2008 MATT Newsline
Reminder: MATT trials this Sunday at Trenton, MO. I won’t be there (Kelsey is graduating high school!) so have fun and report back to me so I can publish something. My understanding is that Scott Carpenter will be organizing a “Golf Cart Rodeo” on Saturday. Saturday is billed as a “Fun Day”, no event. I am certain that there will be people camped for the weekend unless the weather is dreadful! Steve Morgan and Jim Thornton will be setting up a “most excellent” event for Sunday, May 18th. So join in on the fun and come out and ride!
IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: The 2008 Central Regional Series dates have been announced. This is a fun series to ride so make plans to participate in it this fall. Event dates are as follows:
September 20-21 MATT's Quarry Cup
October 4-5 NTTA's El Famosa at Muenster, TX
October 18-19 NEOTT's Octobertest at Disney, OK GrandLake)
November 1-2 AVTA's Flint Hills 2-Day at Douglass, Kansas
ANOTHER IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: MATT club members voted to bring back the “Free Ride!” Due to the high cost of fuel and because we want you to come and ride with us, there will be no fees to enter the May, June or July events (no event in August). So grab some buddies and put your entry fee in the gas tank of your favorite bike hauler and come join us May 18th, June 15th and July 20th!
ONE MORE IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: Curtis Harper is hosting a Vintage Moto X event on May 24th & 25th. Curtis is also putting on a Vintage Trials on Saturday at 10:30am. Go to the website (http://www.movmx.com/) or call me (Kelly 816-966-8594) for more information. It’ll be fun!
WAGNER CUP WORLD NEWS: Dale transported over thirty GASGAS’ to the 2008 Wagner Cup at TTC. Dale’s trailer was loaded to the hilt, plus he stuck 4 or 5 bikes in the galley of his motor home! Whatever it takes to get the job done! Dale had all available bikes spoken for before the event began! The practice session was great, the sections were spectacular if not unbelievable, the weather was great-> until it started to rain early Sunday morning. Of course that did not stop the event, just raised the scores a little. The spectatorship was low, which was great for the spectators that did attend but not so great for the event organizers. Fujigas was on fire Saturday with loop scores of 1 and 8 (including a 5) for a total of 9! Bou was 2nd with 16, Cabestany was 3rd with 28 and Raga 4th with 30. Higher scores on Sunday with the wet conditions as Bou takes 1st with 33 pts, 2nd was Fujinami with 38 and Adam Raga was 3rd with 54. Patrick Smage had a very good showing with 1st on Saturday and 3rd on Sunday in the 125 class. Patrick is contesting all the events in this class in 2008. After 4 rounds, Patrick is in a solid 2nd place with one 1st, two 2nd and two 3rd place finishes. Go Patrick!
As for our own event highlights, our February trials was held on April 5th at Ken Brown’s ranch. Special thanks go out to Mr. Gray who hauled in his personally home built smoker and treated us all to some venison, beef ribs, Louisiana sausage, hot dogs and chili (chili was made by Diane Brown, thank you very much!) I wanna tell you, it was great! Someone also brought cookies and brownies. Thank you Mr. Gray and all others who contributed to the great spread!
A plethora of people were decked in Jayhawk colors, looking forward to the semifinal game of KU vs Roy Williams, I mean NC later that night. Of course everyone knows that KU won that game with an impressive performance, 84-66 over the Tarheels. Then went on to beat Memphis for the NCAA March Madness championship in a hard fought battle with a miraculous ending, 75-68 in overtime! Congrats to the Jayhawks and their fans! Hey, I just noticed, with the score I had at this trials event, I would have beat both of these KU rivals too!
A group of riders came up from AVTA, thanks for your support. Hope you had a good time.
I want to mention a young competitor that came out to ride in his very first trials at this event. His name is Ty Morlang. Ty and his Dad ride Hare Scrambles and trail ride and decided to try trials. Ty is 14(?) and was riding a Sherco 2.9. Somehow Ty was signed up as an Expert! As the Expert group was getting our score cards passed out, Homer Hensley ended up with Ty’s card. I knew that could not be right so I went out to find Ty and check on him. I found Ty and met his Mom and Dad also. Ty was all taken care of in the Novice class and I think he had a good time. The family had to leave early though, because Ty had a Wake Board competition that same afternoon! I sure hope we see Ty and his family again! Ty had some good rides. Maybe Dad will take an interest in trials also!?
And now the Tale of Homer Hensley: Homer is a fine young rider and he likes to have fun too! But he does have a few things to learn and Dale is eager to teach. Lesson number 1) Never, ever wish ill will on a fellow competitor, the Trials God will strike you down! Homer learned this in section 7, a severe downhill, slightly off camber with a drop into the creek while avoiding several large rocks that would surely send you through the bars into the creek below! Homer said, “Wouldn’t it be funny if Dale went thru the bars and landed in the muddy water in the creek?” So guess who took a bath in the creek? I was wondering why it was taking Homer so long to get thru the section! Lesson 2) Always ride within your abilities even on the loop. Between sections 7 & 8, we went down a bank, across the creek and up the other side. I was ahead of Homer but got into a spot of trouble with a slippery root and put a right foot out to help myself thru near the top of the climb up. Homer was trying to overtake me and splat, he ran into me and my bike and we both ended up on the ground! Exhibit B & C: Twice on the loop, while racing along the edge of the woods in a field, Homer approached a turn in the trail too fast and threw his bike into a sideways slide to stop. Well the bike stopped, Homer did not and did a high side dismount! Lesson 3) Stay with your group. On the last loop, Homer (kids have so much energy) was still racing around, so much so he went past section 8 and on to 9. The rest of us arrived a bit later, rode the section and scored each other. As we are about to leave, Homer rides up to the section with a big grin and we jokingly tell him we were going to give him a 10 on the section! So we finish up our third loop and began comparing scores. Dale scored me, I scored Steve Morgan, Steve scored Matt Hopkins and Matt scored Dale. Who had Homer’s card? Nobody! With the mix up earlier with Ty’s card, Homer did not score anyone and it never came up during the event who had Homer’s card! Lesson 4) Always make sure you know who is keeping your score!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Speaking of scores, take a look at the Intermediates. Top three finishers all with 64 points! Is that close or what! Talk about competition! I bet Ken can think of one dab he didn’t really need!
So
I think everyone had a very good time, the weather had been wet but
it was a perfect day to ride. The sections were very good too,
except for 2 and 3 that would have taken points from Fujigas! Just
kidding, they were tough though. I don’t know what anybody did
to Bruce to “inspire” him to lay out those two ball
busters!
AND NOW A BIT OF NON-TRIALS NEWS: Kids these days! I don’t know what is getting into them. I just don’t get it. You’d never catch me doing this kind of thing! What kind of thing you might ask? Well how about Jennifer Carpenter running a full 26+ mile marathon in less than one minute over 4 hours (4 hours was her goal, how about that!) followed by Marc in something like 4 hours 12 minutes! What has gotten into these kids? It must be contagious because on April 6th, Bill Sanderson ran the first leg of a 45 mile fun(?) run. Well I say run, due to some construction on the planned route he got to ride a bus with other contenders for part of the first leg! Other team members include Marc, Jason and Suzanne Carpenter as well as Jillian, a co-worker of Bill’s. Their team name was “The Chuck Norris Wannabees”. The race was called the ‘Brew to Brew Run’ as it started at Boulevard Brewery in KCKS and ended at the Free State Brewery in Lawrence. Each teammate ran 2 legs of about 2.2 miles each while drinking a cool brew per mile! Just kidding! Each team fashioned their own baton to pass between runners along the race. I imagine a cool one or two was enjoyed at the end of the race. Jason ran a 5K called “Run for the Dogs” at Lakewood in Lees Summit last Saturday. Jason boasted that only one dog beat him and he came in ahead of Katie Horner from KCTV5! Other runs are planned throughout the summer. What has gotten into these kids these days?
April Event Review: Bill and Bob Sanderson put on a very fun event at our club grounds in Trenton. The weather was unpredictable and had been very wet. The day started out beautiful at my house, sunny and warm. But I was glad I threw in a jacket as it was at least 10 degrees cooler and threatening rain at the Quarry. So Bill and Bob laid out easier sections in case it rained on the event. Turns out traction was really not a factor but plenty of fun was, even though attendance was low. No Novice riders signed up for today’s event. Nate and Seth are back to battling it out in the Amateur class while Zayn and Lane continue to improve. Jim Bridges rode his faithful 200 GG very well but not well enough to top Bob Sanderson on his tried and true 200 GG. Chris Williams and I had a great time with the Expert lines, even made some harder. I found out in section one, a hill climb below campground road, that it is very hard to ride while patting yourself on the back. I was running good thru the rocks and up the climb, clean ride so far, great job Kelly, then just could not get the bike to turn right with only one hand on the bars! Carl Hopkins turned it on and went LOW to top the Intermediates, followed closely by Randy Dennis (who by the way was very ornery that day but having lots of fun, guess he had been cooped up too long or something) and just off pace was Mike Carpenter. Bruce Carver was on fire, matching the lowest loop score with Jason at 7, but we ride three loops and they all count; Jason took the win, again, then Bruce and Marc filling out the podium.
After the event, an amazing thing happened. Seemed like everyone, including myself, went back out to practice the sections! It was great! I guess everyone was having such a good time and we did not feel like we had been thru H_LL and were ready to die, so we went back out to ride some more!
MATT’s own little Amish boy, Dawson Dennis made a model replica of Carver’s Camp, the hot spot for overnight campers to enjoy shooting the breeze and maybe pitching a horse shoe. Don’t know if it was for school or just for fun, but it is pretty cool! I guess Dawson really enjoys coming to the Quarry!