Old School

By Dave Porter

If you’re an ATV racing junkie that can’t get enough information about the biggest and best ATV Motocross series on the planet, and you’re interested in the opinion of someone that’s chased points in the ATV MX Nationals (formerly Grand National Championship Series) since the three-wheeler days, you’ve come to the right place.

To keep it simple as can be here’s a list of the observations I made at round one in sweet home Alabama…

1. The first thing on my list of observations from round one is the fact that you should never trust that your belongings will be fine in your locked hotel room. Thanks to the house keeping crook that stole my digital camera I have no visual aids for you guys to check out from this year’s season opener. I’ll be keeping my camera with me at round two. Speaking of photos, if you happen to get a cool shot that you don’t mind sharing for future race recaps please e mail it to me.

2. The economy, the economy, the economy – that’s all I’ve heard in the last year. What economy problem? There was 778 entries! And I flat out could not believe the amount of money in the pits. Everywhere you looked there was $100k motor homes, new shiny rigs and new pickups and blinged out trailers as far as the eye could see. All I can say is in my opinion it looked like the bad economy has had no effect on the AMA ATV MX Nationals.

3. Speaking of blinged out rigs…. Joe Byrd  has the nicest one in the pits, bar none! It’s beautifully wrapped and very professional looking. If Honda was involved in the sport and supported him as factory rider I don’t think they would have as nice of a program as the one he displayed at the opener.

4. As nice as the rigs were, the soil they were parked was pethetic. The folks at Millcreek need to plant grass in the pits. It was such a mess on Thursday that a lot of those high-dollar rigs needed to be yanked into their parking spots with a big tractor. Planting grass would fix a lot of parking problems in my opinion. Other than this I think they had a nice facility and did a decent job accommodating everyone.

5. I’ll say this… Dustin Wimmer is by far the fastest ATV racer on the planet! It’s my opinion that everyone in the Pro class is racing for second place in 2010.

6. The #13 Motoworks Can-Am rider has been training his butt off. My hat’s off to the Ironman John Natalie. He could have showed up and just went through the motions, (especially after becoming a father to his and Michelle’s newborn daughter), but it was obvious – he’s still eating his Wheeties. I sure hope he keeps it going. John really can make things fun to watch when he’s got that eye of the tiger like he did five years ago.

7. Speaking of a tiger… Chad Wienen is like watching a hungry tiger eat a big steak at the zoo. That guy is ferocious on a four wheeler and can flat out ride anything you put him on. Before you can look twice he’s passed four riders and in the hunt. What a privledge to get to see him ride a quad. I think he’d be able to get a top ten on a Pitster pit bike if he had to.
8. Mark Baldwin and Josh Upperman are a two man wrecking crew. They don’t need all the glitz and high-dollar glamour that some of the top pro teams bring to the scene. Mark does everything himself year after year after year. It’s amazing when you stop and think about it. He’s like the Cal Ripken Jr. of ATV Racing. Race after race, year after year he keeps on producing like a machine. Year after year he had Tim Farr dialed in like NASA has their astranauts prepped for space travel. And now come race time, you can take it to the bank, Josh Upperman and his equipment will pull into their gate spot in pristine shape and ready to win. I’m not so sure Josh would be pulling holeshots, leading laps and winning races like he is without Mark’s help. With all due respect, I think Mark crafted Josh and fast forwarded his racing career by about five years. I wouldn’t be surprised if this team ends up winning a national championship, maybe even this year.

I talked with Keith Little about the “MX-Periment” program he’s running this year with ATV Rider Magazine. I got a kick out of this idea. I think it’s genious. Props to ATV Rider Magazine for coming up with such a cool idea. And good for Keith for being open minded enough to give something different like this a try. It should be interesting to see how he does when he’s not on his tried and true Honda.

10. Anytime you see a rider withouta bunch of free time and endless money to play with do well it’s fun to watch and worth noting. I’m talking about Adam Clark in the Pro Am Unlimited ranks. Adam works at KTM in Ohio and spent the winter riding indoors at Ram Jam’s Indoor MX Park in the Cleveland area. While most of his Pro Am peers spent months in sunny Florida, Adam froze his way through a zillion laps in Ohio on a little arenacross track, and it paid off for him. He looked really fast to me. It’s also nice to see KTM win a motocross race. They’ve gone the extra mile in this sport and I think it’s important that riders like Adam provide winning results for them.

11.  I’m really impressed with Heather Byrd. Year after year she’s able to win races and championship despite the young hungry girls trying so hard to take her number one ranking from her. She rides really smooth and never over her head. If you’re an up and comer, male or female, watch her ride and take mental notes.

12. And finally, I learned one thing about myself that I was a little surprised to learn. Don’t get me wrong I was Jonesing a little, but I think I’ve got a handle on NOT racing this year. My itch to race was there, especially when I saw myself winning the Plus 40 class as the guys rode past me on the other side of the fence, but all things considered, and eight national championships to lean on, I’m handling my addiction to racing pretty well. Leading up to the season opener I thought I might have to enter some sort of rehab center like Tiger Woods, you know, “My name is Dave and I have a problem, I’m addicted to ATV racing”, but so far so good.

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