Letting Go.

So often in life we can rush headlong through the days and hours making decisions at a furious rate never once considering the consequence of those choices, even when we are doing our best to make things right.
I have always prided myself on being unfailingly supportive of Jakes riding no matter what place he finishes. I have been very vocal about it when he comes off the track and try to make him feel like no matter where he finishes he is a winner to me. There are times when he rolls off the track after having one of those less than perfect races and it is very difficult to run the same old “Great Job” past someone that doesn’t feel like he just did a great job. Just the fact that he has finished the race was always good enough to me and I wanted him to know that trophies and points don’t matter to me. At the outset of the 2005 season Jake actually told me he wanted me to be harder on him to try and help him ride better. OK so we have tried that and to a certain extent I think it has helped him with some early season cob webs and some bad habits that he had developed.





The problem started when Jake hit sort of a plateau and began to have some issues with getting off the starting gate. Running in any race demands that you get going with everyone else and near the front if possible so even though he was passing a dozen or more riders Jake was struggling to crack the top 15. Each time he would roll off the track after a discouraging run I’d be right there at the track exit to offer my supportive comments and assurance that he had done a great job just by finishing. Sometimes he would accept that and as I pushed the bike back to the pits and he peeled off his gear we would discuss the good and bad points of the race. Jakes mom would also be there to offer her encouragement grabbing his gloves and googles with water bottle at the ready, hugging him and patting his back protectively. Then there were the times when the race hadn’t gone even remotely well, starting last, falling once or more during the race and in general not getting the result he wanted. I was still trying to offer my encouragement but the words only seemed to aggravate him as he would hotly answer me back “No dad that wasn’t good I rode awful!” A few times he came off the track and was upset to the point of tears complaining about the way the bike rode or that he didn’t like the Supercross style track he was sometimes racing on. I wish I could say that I took it in stride and let him vent but instead I vainly tried to convince him that he had done a good job or that the track was the track and he just had to deal with it. Well a couple times it came to point of us yelling at each other and even me suggesting that if he was having such a bad time maybe we should sell the bike and just stop. It was one of those times in your life that you wish you could reach out into the air and grab the words back before they got away from you but of course you can’t.

After that day I tried to take stock of what it was that I was trying to do for Jake and make sure that I didn’t let my own temper or feelings get in the way too much. I decided that I was just going to let Jake have his time mostly to himself and after a few simple words I would leave him alone after the races.
It all finally became clear to me in the fall series when Jake had one of those races that are just heartbreaking to watch. Stalled the bike off the gate then got going pretty good only to get too high in a corner and go down. Up and running again when he washed out the front end and face planted in a particularly fast section, hitting the ground hard right in front of where I was standing in the mechanics area. He picked it up and got going but the shear frustration was visible as he took off. Rolling out the exit gate in dead last he was obviously angry and his mom and I walked a wide path behind him and just tried to let him calm down. We got back to the pits; put the bike and gear away then hung out watching the other races that were going on. Jake had grabbed himself a bottle of water and came over to the fence where I was standing, we stood there without talking for a few minutes then I looked over at him and could see the disappointment on his face. The supportive, loving side of me couldn’t stand it anymore so I said “Listen pal I know you aren’t happy with the way the race went but it is just one bad race. You know I don’t care about that, what is more important to me is that you didn’t quit you kept on trying. Getting a trophy or finishing top five isn’t everything. I love you pal and it’s more important to me that you have fun, trophies and all that stuff it just doesn’t matter to me.” At that point Jake looked up and met my gaze squarely and with a fire in his eyes he said “Well it matters to me Dad!”

That was when I realized something, I had been trying to find a way to make myself feel better about what was happening on the track and trying to make Jake see it my way. It isn’t about me, it’s about him. Jake has set himself a goal and rather than try to make him feel better when he doesn’t reach it I needed to do whatever I can to help him get there. It may never happen but if I have done everything I can to give him the opportunity and the tools then the rest is up to him. How he deals with making it or not making it happen the way he wants it to is all part of life and there is nothing I can do to control that, all I can do is be there. Until he asks for help I have to let it go because I can't tell him how to feel but then again he can't tell me not to be proud no matter what.

First annual New England Regional Championships showcases area’s best racing talent

The first annual NE Regional Championship has come and gone but the bench racing and reminiscing will definitely go on all year. The idea for this series was born out of years of talk between racing friends Ricky Zielfelder from Factory Connection and Dave Boisvert co-owner of Winchester Speedpark. Why is it that New England is the second largest center for MX racing in the country but had no way to decide who the fastest racers were from the multiple organizations racing there? The Labor Day weekend of 2005 was marked as the date and the Winchester Speedpark Motocross track was the spot. Owners Suzanne and Dave Boisvert had everything in order and the weather could not have been more perfect. Rolling into the pits on Saturday morning I was amazed at how the Winchester Speedpark track had transformed from the one I am so accustomed to seeing week in and week out to one that looked like the home of a national. Cruising along the vendor row I was just blown away at how much it felt like walking through the pits/ vendor areas for our annual trip to “The Wick”, it was flat out awesome.
The format for the 3 day weekends race was a single moto for each class each day, 3 motos to determine the overall in each class. The first gate drop for the weekend was the 125 Expert Class and it was to be an indicator of how the racing would go for the entire weekend. The lead changed 3 times in the first 2 laps and the battles ran deep throughout the class. Chad Charbonneau has been running up in the Canadian national series and posting some very good results and he continued to show his skills throughout the weekend. The Litchfield New Hampshire native ran his Cernics.com/Factory Connection Hondas around like he was on rails smooth and scary fast going 1/1/1 in both the 125 and 250 expert classes. You can definitely expect to hear big things from Chad Charbonneau in the very near future, think Factory big and you can quote me on that.

Taking the top spot on the podium in the 125 Youth A class was Maine’s Craig Dube although in the final moto of the weekend it almost slipped away when hard charging Justin Rando pushed the issue crowding his Yamaha in through a very tight inside line with room for just one sending Dube to the ground and almost knocking him off the top of the podium. Dube remounted to take third giving him a 1/1/3 for the overall win with Rando running 2/2/2 for the second spot. Wareham Cycle Center/American Suzuki rider Mike Picone put together a 3/3/1 to snag the final podium spot. I lost count of the number of times I saw racers pushing it hard in the final turn before the checkered flag to move up one more spot but undoubtedly the best one of the weekend had to go to Michael Sottile. An unfortunate mechanical DNF in moto 1 took him out of the running for a title but in the second moto of the 3 the Kawasaki mounted Sottile was relentless sticking a wheel in at the very last turn and taking the win by .006 seconds. It was a smooth and consistent weekend from the Keene Motorsports backed Kawasaki of Matt Fisk who took the overall win in the 85 A 10-14 with a 1/2/3.
Fresh off of winning 2 85cc titles at Loretta Lynn’s and looking just as sharp was Monroe New York’s Justin Barcia. With a perfect record for holeshots and 1/1/1 finishes in both the 85 A 7-13 and Supermini 7-13 the FMF/Honda backed Barcia was unstoppable. Now lest we forget that Amateur motocross is more than just the 125 young guns and Mini classes I have to mention a New England motocross road warrior who richly deserves the attention. 39 year old Pat Barton can be found on any given weekend mixing it up on the MX tracks of New England, from Maine to New York racing for longer than some of those new “phenoms” in the minis have been alive. The Troy Lee Designs backed Barton swept all 3 motos in the 25+ and 35+ classes then took 5th overall in the Four-Stroke Open class. For good measure Barton was on track for a podium in the 250 Expert with a 3/5 going into the final day but got tangled with another rider at the start of the moto, fighting back to finish 14th gave him a 6th overall. That’s 4 classes with 2 sweeps and top 10 finishes in the rest, can you say competitive?

So you get my point? There was so much going on over the 3 day holiday weekend that you would have needed a full week to take it all in. Oddly enough, for me the whole New England Regional experience was summed up during the sight lap practice on the foggy Monday morning of the final day. Although the weather during the race days was perfect, clear blue skies breezy and warm, during practice on Sunday it was a little foggy but it burned off quickly and practice was accented by a low layer of fog that the bikes rolled through like a rock and roll stage set. Monday was a different story as the fog hung low and late, almost as if Mother Nature was reluctant to let the weekend come to an end. As the riders lined up for the sight lap practice and started off I was struck by what a perfect metaphor that was for the sport of Motocross, the truly solitary nature of racing. All the factory rigs and RV’s in the pits, fans and families lining the fences and the bright banners of the starting area were left behind. One by one the riders made their way out onto the track and heading out towards the back section they disappeared into the mist all alone. Soon enough they would wisp back into view only to promptly turn and disappear again. Faint glimpses of rider and bike through the heavy morning air like the mythical ghost riders. All on their own plunging headlong through the unknown until they reemerged to roll off the exit gate coated in mud and none the worse for the wear. Then again maybe I think too much

How long is it until the next New England Regional? Only 360 more days, I know I’ll be there.

Southwick, Party of One Thousand...

Originally published in Volume 42, Issue # 29 of Cycle News, 7-27-2005.
copyright CycleNews Inc. Cannot be re-printed without permission.




Doug Henry making Southwick look easy.
Photo courtesy www.tomofarrell.com

There has been an awful lot of motocross racing history made on the sandy soil of Southwick’s MX338 and some legendary riders have emerged to carve out their own place in MX history. What was supposed to be the second part of the Winchester Speedpark and NEMX membership challenge series has come to be called the MX version of the “Perfect Storm” and resulted in the largest racer turnout ever in the long history of the track. Race cancellations for 2 other large New England race organizations, NESC and NEMA, coupled with outstanding weather to bring a total of 1,007 riders.
The combined crews of WSP and NEMX did a bang up job, keeping an army of riders rolling on and off the start gate as well as scoring what must have seemed like a million bikes.
There is nothing that completes a trip to “The Wick” like watching local hero Doug Henry rail through the deep sand, impossibly low and smooth. Now maybe it was the weather or maybe it was a scouting trip for the upcoming national race where Troy Lee Designs backed Henry usually makes an appearance to steal a holeshot or 2. One thing is for sure when the 30+ Expert riders lined up there was a very familiar #19 YZ250 rolling up next to them. Everyone including this writer thought that a Henry holeshot was a forgone conclusion but apparently no one told Todd Richotte. The Suzuki rider shot to the front of the pack in Moto 1 and it wasn’t until well into lap 2 before Henry was able to get around going into the “gravity cavity” section near the finish line. Moto 2 was a more of the same with Richotte taking the lead for most of the shortened moto and Henry working his YZ250 smoothly through the sandy lines to take the lead with half a lap to go.
Being that New England has long been a hotbed for MX racing it should come as no surprise that the local Womens racing action features some great competition. As it turns out the top 2 riders for the day came to the track in the same rig and not just because they are Team Suzuki/ Bettencourts/ Pro-Action/ Thor teammates, they are also sisters. 15 year old Angela Crowley and 13 year old Katelyn spent the day at the front of the pack in the Womens class splitting the holeshots and even trading off first place finishes. Angela took the holeshot in moto1 but it was Katelyn passing her to win. In moto 2 the sisters Crowley switched off and Katelyn got off the famous Southwick starting pad quicker but Angela passed her on lap 2 for the moto win and first place overall.

Interview with Rich Winkler; owner of Dirt Wurx.

The following interview was conducted in June of 2005 with Rich Winkler from Dirt Wurx, the largest and most well known builder of MX and SX tracks in the world. When this interview was conducted Rich was hanging out at the Winchester Speedpark complex during planning for the first New England Regional Championship.


How long have you been interested in Motocross, did you ride as a kid?

Oh yeah, I guess my first motorized vehicle was a lawnmower engine powered mini-bike, a Rupp Roadster. It was one of those with the pull starter and that was about 1969, I was 11 or 12 years old when I started. Then I graduated up to the bigger bikes and eventually I was a number 1 ranked 250 rider in District 2 which is now District 34 and then I rode 2 years as an AMA pro.

Was your family into racing as well?

No, not really. I have a brother and a sister my brother rode sort of recreationally but never really got involved in racing. Racing is different now then it was back then, most of the time the more serious riders, the guys in their late teens early 20’s came pretty much in their own vehicles. The phenomenon you see today with the whole families and the motor homes was just starting as I was sort of tapering down my racing. I mean my folks came and watched me race a few times but it wasn’t like the family effort it is today.

Still ride to this day

Oh yeah.

Do you do any riding competitively?

Yeah I try to get out to a half a dozen or so races a year, plus 40 class. I rode 6 or 7 races here on the WSP MX track last year plus a few in District 34.

How did your riding and racing transition into building tracks?


Well, when I was riding as a pro it became pretty obvious I wasn’t going to make any money doing that. (Laughs) I started to look around for something to do that would be inside the motorcycle industry and somehow I got a resume to Mike Goodwin, the original SX promoter. At that time I didn’t even realize there was such a thing as a promoter; I thought the AMA put the races on. I didn’t set out to do it but I must have sort of hit him at the right time and they offered me a job as what they called a “Production Manager”. So I went to work originally as an employee of Goodwin and then later on for Pace who was the forerunner of Clear Channel. At that time I did primarily the operations side of the events much more than just the tracks, it was setting up the ticket takers and finding out how many ushers we would need, everything from the amount of fencing we would need for the pits to how many porta-potties for the night. That is how it started and then eventually CE Altman from Pace and I sat down and discussed the quality of the race tracks from one event to another. At that time the quality of the tracks varied greatly some tracks cost times more than others and some of them were frankly horrible.
We just started to think that there was a value to standardizing it, trying to make it cost similar and have the track quality be similar from week to week so that’s how it got started.

When was this happening?

About 1991, we did it for a year before we actually named the company Dirt Wurx. That first year things were still sort of spread out Pace only had about 5 rounds of these events. The rest were promoted by people like Bill West and Mickey Thompson. So that first year or two we all had regular jobs too, we built the tracks but then we would have to come home and do something else. It wasn’t until the third year that we got the whole series and then it started to be viable to make a living doing it.

What is the basic process of designing tracks for the upcoming season, do you do them all at once?

Today the tracks are all designed at the same time which is a necessity because of the internet. People want to be able to buy their tickets ahead of time and they want to be able to show the whole season online. Clear Channel wants the tracks done no later than September and in fact they are pushing for them before that. They would really like them now and it’s what June? Once they have them the track layouts are provided to the factories and the AMA for a look see and when everybody is happy with them they send out packets to the factories and Privateers. That is the positive, the fact that everybody gets to see the track ahead of time, the negative is that it can be a little close to the past season which makes it kind of hard creatively. Coming up with new stuff can be tough because your mind is still in the mode of the tracks from before and then when we do come up with something that we like if it works great but if it doesn’t…we may have put that in say 3 more tracks later in the season. In the old days we used to do the first 5 or 6 drawings and submit them, then after the Daytona break we would do the rest. By the time we got to the Daytona break we had a lot of input from the riders and a lot better feeling for where we wanted to go. In a way I kind of like that better, I mean I understand why it has to be done all at once but I like the way we used to do it when the second half of the season had a little modification.

How much of the track design is dependant on the venue?

It’s not so much a restriction because of the venue but there are a lot of constraints when you build these tracks. As a track builder reading peoples opinions on internet chat boards and such, there’s tons of criticism of the tracks the design and such, a lot of armchair quarterbacks. What people don’t realize is that there are a lot of other factors, were not in a field here and we have a lot of finite restrictions. There is X number of square footage, there is a concrete floor we can’t go below and the there are sight line restrictions as well. We can go too high with some of the stuff because people on the other side of the stadium will complain that they can’t see. There are certain things that are required the promoters expect there is going to be a triple jump on either side and at least one set of whoops and I mean you get down to where your sort of stuck with how you lay the track out on the floor. You get some creativity with the rhythm sections and stuff but you know quantities of dirt, manpower, time, budget numbers can limit you as to what you can do. My opinion is that the look of SX is kind of stale, it’s always the same, jumps piled up on the flat you know. We are looking into some different things, structural Styrofoam and some other fillers where it would make it feasible economically and time wise to put some changes into the tracks. Hopefully for 2006 we will see some new stuff.

How much do you take “the fan experience” into consideration when building the newer tracks?

In my opinion that is 50% at least, maybe more. Let’s face it motocross is more popular now than ever before, most of that is being driven by the popularity of SX both live and on television. SX popularity is fan driven the reason SX is popular is because relatively uncommitted fans can see it very easily as opposed to having to go out to say Unadilla or Southwick. If you want to go see an outdoor national you have to be really into it where as Supercross is much easier to take in. The problem is you try to build a track with a balance between what the fans want, what is best for them to see and what is challenging to the top riders. The top riders right now Ricky, Chad, Bubba and Windham are on a level one rung higher than even the other factory riders so it is very common to hear that the tracks are too easy. Yet we are trying to build a track for these guys and like 60 or 70 other riders so it is a little tough. If we built a track that was brutally challenging and edgy for say Ricky and Chad, 50% of the other riders would be Trials riding around it and that is not what the fans paid to see. The fans pay to see racing not an obstacle course so it’s a knife edge to make something that challenges those top guys but looks flowing and fast at the same time. It’s tough. The whole idea, the whole theory that the track can determine the race outcome I just don’t believe it. I wish I could build a track that would make every race epic. Reality is that this is racing you know, why are human beings interested in sports? 90% of football games are pretty boring, we watch it because we want to see that 10% that’s epic. That is what sports are about.

What are the logistics for taking the whole circus on the road?

I think the outsider would be surprised what goes into it. Not counting the race teams just the people putting the race on, there are 6 semis plus our half a semi rig on the road each week. The work that goes into putting that thing together and then tearing it down for the next city, it’s very common to have a 90-100 hour work week. I feel really proud of our guys, our crew for putting it together every week. Also the production crew from Clear Channel they are a dedicated hardworking bunch of people. That’s another reason I like some of that internet trash talk, they talk about CC like it’s some evil empire and you know what…who knows maybe at the very top levels of the executive offices they may be right...(laughs) I don’t know. I do know that the people there working every week are just like you and I, they love motocross and they want to be there. The work their asses off so it’s tough to see that type of trash talk when I am there every week looking at this group of people that are breaking their stones to put on something that they can be proud of. They don’t have anything to do with the high end negotiations with the AMA or what Howard Stern can say or not say, they just want to put on a good show.

What is the off season like for you?

We get a lot of pressure towards the end of the Supercross season with people interested in having us build tracks so maybe we don’t pay enough attention to that plus about 50 percent of that is just tire kickers. So sometimes when SX is over we have a little lull because either we didn’t do our homework enough or some of the people that we talked with were a little flakier than we expected. Towards the middle of the summer we will do a lot of Amateur tracks like here, private practice tracks and things then towards the beginning of the fall our regular events start up again. In real life the stuff we do with CC is like 65 percent of the business with the rest being public riding areas or tracks like this.(WSP) That smaller percentage of the business is a much easier dollar to earn, I enjoy coming out and doing this stuff. Obviously it’s not as lucrative but it doesn’t have to be, a couple or three of us can take out the rig and do a small track and it’s not a big time pressure which makes it more enjoyable. The general reaction when we quote numbers to people for smaller track jobs is shock that it’s so reasonable. That’s the reason that I want to be involved with things like that and the big event at the end of the summer. (New England Regional Championship) There is just a huge interest in that kind of thing now, whether it’s a public riding area or private tracks. It is getting tougher to find places to ride these days.

What is the biggest challenge with building Amateur tracks?

My own opinion and I’ll be the first to admit I’m probably not in the mainstream but I don’t believe that amateur motocross needs gapped jumps of any kind. This WSP Motocross track is a perfect example, it was totally flat when we started, beyond flat and we have built it up to give the rider the feeling that they are negotiating terrain. There are some things to jump but there is nothing on this track that really has a penalty if you don’t make it. I see some amateur tracks that are intimidating to me, I mean I’m admit I’m an old guy now but I raced professional MX and I see some things that scare me. I just don’t think that kind of thing belongs on an amateur track. It’s almost like a moral issue for me; I don’t want to see some kid in a wheelchair because he forgot to switch his gas on and cased a big gap. SX is a little bit tougher the current track layout for WSP is about as far as I would go with an amateur SX track. Most of the stuff over there is step ups or step downs with different smaller jump put in front of it so even the younger riders can at least jump onto or off of something. I forget that I am old guy while most of these riders are young kids and they like to jump. I just think that for me since like 1969 motocross has been my whole life and a lot of the things that make me a person come from motocross. It’s individual, there are no excuses and it teaches you your strengths and weaknesses. I have a ton of respect for motocross and the things that it has done for me. On the other hand you have got to be realistic and the reality is that motocross is not town soccer or Pop Warner football; this is a very dangerous sport. At a Little League baseball game your probably not going to end up in a wheelchair, you can end up that way here. So as a track builder it has always been my philosophy that you have to take that into consideration. Build it so it is fun, it’s challenging, it’s athletic but it’s not the X games You just don’t need it, motocross can be fun without that kind of crazy stuff.