Old School
- Updated: September 13, 2006
By David Porter
Matt airs it out at U2. This is a second track at the world-famous Unadilla facility. Many locals say it’s even better than the Unadilla track.
Well if you read my column a few months ago, I talked about whether my son and I were going to ride the nationals or ride the WPSA Powersport Tour. Things were pretty much up in the air at that time as to what my son and I planned to do. Well, we decided on option three. Ride our local district and race every weekend for seven months. Really it was my son’s decision, he said, “Dad, I just really want to ride, I don’t care what we do — I just want to ride as much as I can.” So there you have it. A race every weekend it is.
Going into this, I quickly thought back to when I tried this last back in 1999. I didn’t remember it being that much work for some reason. Man my memory is a lot worse than I thought it was. Five months later, I’ve realized how much more of a daunting task than I originally imagined. I must have been a complete jackass to agree to race every single weekend. I thought 10-12 Nationals a year with 5-10 local races a year was a lot of work. Every weekend is just crazy. The work never seems to end. Yes my son and our newest crew member, Will, are an enormous amount of help and riding four strokes seems to be a little less work, but my God, every single weekend is something I’m just not used to, and neither is my 44 year-old butt.
Dave lays it down at District 3’s Royal Mt.
Truth be told I’m glad Matt (my son) wanted to race our local district instead of the Nationals. I’m glad because it’s a very good way to increase our riding skills, gives us more of a chance to try and test different things, work on hole shots, try different tire set ups, suspension settings etc. It also allows me to spend every weekend with my son, and as all you dads know that is priceless. Although it didn’t take him long to find our AMA District 3 hometown hotties and now I seem to see less of him. But at 17 years old I’ll take whatever visiting time I can get with him.
Local Scene 101
I guess over all these years that I ran the GNC Series, I kind of lost sight of everything the guys at the local level deal with. It’s a huge sacrifice to commit to a seven-month-long-series. You miss a lot of special family functions, and, well, forget about getting stuff done around the house. I’ve got a honey-do-list as big as my race gas bill, and we are only about half-way through the season. I guess the biggest obstacle on the list is the cost of racing itself. Just like anything else, the more you do it – the more it costs. I’ve gotten kind of spoiled by my own hard work. My PRP racing parts business has grown to a point in which the business pays for itself as far as our personal racing bills go. I do understand how fortunate I am to have a situation like this, most dont. Now, more than ever, I really understand just how truly fortunate I am. Yes I have worked my ass off to get to this point but to be really honest when I was riding every national I never really gave it much thought. I was just working really hard to get to the next far away round on the circuit.
D3 Boys
Some trackside D3 hotties.
I can see how the added expense of racing every weekend takes its toll on everyone, and now even the local level guys. At the local level most of the guys I am racing with are very young. They are either still in high school or just out of school. Many choose not to chase points on the national scene because they’re priorities of starting a family, buying a house, going to college etc. are bigger than their dream of a national ranking. I really respect their decision and so should you. I’ve got to be honest with you, after running the national for so many years I truly forgot and lost sight of what the local riders go through and all the things they have to put up with (we’ll save these things for another column). In short, I can safely say local scene isn’t as easy as all you national riders might think. In the last few months I’ve truly come to appreciate these guys more than ever. All the guys that my son and I are racing with now days are all good hard working people that race their butts off every weekend, regardless of whether they can afford to race the nationals or not.
In closing, the moral of my story is this; no matter what starting gate we are behind, whether it be the WPSA, the ATVA GNCs, or the local scene, it’s the same great people enjoying this incredible sport in the same way. So when you national regulars go back to your local tracks and race, show some respect in return and together enjoy the sport to the fullest.
