First Lady of ICE

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Updated: January 23, 2011

By Mandy Brodil Cervantes
Photos by MC Racing Action Photography

Mommy with Wild Child Jr. (Amelia Morae #62)

I feel like I have disappeared for the past month. So first off, my apologies for not keeping everyone up to date as I would have liked and of course, Happy New Year to all my fellow ATV enthusiasts out there!

Last weekend, J&M Racing headed to Reading, PA for the first ICE race post holidays. After the crashes, motor problems, handling problems, etc, I was ready to end 2010 and begin 2011 on a positive note. I’ve been complaining about lack of compression in my engine so Curtis Sparks tore down my motor while I was out in Fresno, California. Sure enough he found that I’ve been deprived of power this whole time. It appeared that something, (most likely sand from icy-glass beating my bottom end) scarred the sleeve of my cylinder and beat up my piston. Thankfully, Curtis was able to get me back up and going with fresh new snappy power. I also decided to it was time to put my Hoosier tires on, I was nervous yet excited to see how they were going to work.

The best part of heading to the Sovereign Center in Reading, PA was that it meant a family road-trip for the Cervantes Trio (my husband, daughter and I). We set out early Friday morning as we had an appointment with Custom Axis Shocks aka Penske Racing. All I can say is, Wow! I’ve used Custom Axis shocks since the then Lodi, CA based company decided to sponsor this up and coming CA racer. To me, they build the best shocks money can buy. I got the official tour of the place, to say it’s impressive is an understatement. They are so organized. The floors were a clean vibrant red, every part had a specific bin, work benches were kept nice and tidy, but the best part of their company is they have a great group of guys. They closed at five but they worked after hours to get my rear shock just perfect. It was also reassuring to know that they were going to be at the races Saturday night to help adjust for the track conditions. It might seem to most people that once you get your quad dialed in for ice racing, you won’t need to change it the rest of the season. This is far from the truth, ice isn’t just ice. The temperature and thickness of the ice can make traction change drastically. Also if the ice for the race has been down for a long time, it is normally nice and hard — giving you more traction versus the water only being down for a couple days, which tends to make you spin your tires more. I don’t think I’ve gone a single weekend without making some type of adjustment to my shocks, tire pressure or ride height. In fact, you can start your first heat with really soft ice and go out the second heat on a hard, tight track because layers have been cut through. This especially happens when we race on the actual hockey ice that stays down all winter.

Susan Parker (Miss July) and Kelly Winters (Miss May) from ATV’s Most Wanted.com came out to support me (Miss January 2011). Thank you for coming out girls, it meant the world!

After leaving Custom Axis, it was off to the hotel for some pizza or pie as it’s called in PA and a good night’s sleep. There was lots of work to be done. Saturday morning started out with the Cervantes Trio’s morning ritual; dancing to videos on CMT. Then it was time to get dressed, drive to the arena and get down to business. It was a very busy day with changing the rear shock, adjusting the ride height, re-aligning my front end after a few wrecks, mounting my Hoosier tires on wheels, then finally polishing my Hot Pink 250R. With no time to relax, I got dressed and then drew two terrible starting positions for my heats.
After all the work and worry of not getting it done in time, I cheered up when I was able to finally meet ATV’s Most Wanted Kelly Winters (Miss May) and see Susan Parker (Miss July) after many years. It was really nice to have extra fans in the stands even though I had some really bad luck that weekend. I went from way too much traction in my first heat causing me to bicycle over, to racing my second heat with bent handlebars, to starting the LCQ and main on the back row.

Coming into this race I was sitting in third and roughly 60 points behind none other than my teammate, Jeff Brodil. He has been so consistent, doing well in heats and making every main event. In fact, if he wins the championship we will be the first ever father-son/father-daughter team to have both won an ICE World Championship. That would be so awesome to make history but that’s not where my head is right now. Of course he is the only other one I want to beat me but I also want that championship for myself. I don’t go into anything with a mindset of settling for second. Luckily for me, the main event went partially my way where I ended up fourth and moved up 25 points on first place. The bad news, J&M Racing’s Jeff Brodil was involved in a pile up costing him valuable points.

That’s all for now. Thanks for reading my column. See ya next time. In the meantime check out the pictures of my crash and please send a little extra luck my way! I don’t want to be upside down on the ice again.