Pikeville, Kentucky

We spent about ten days at the Trick Tank facility in South Carolina.  A big thanks to Bob Gilbertson, Kim Cabe and all the crew at Terminator Motorsports for all their hospitality.  The boys rode a little bit every day and on Saturday morning we taught a motocross school.  We had 12 riders and they were attentive and worked hard during the class.  David Brewer from Arkadelphia came up from Savannah on Saturday and rode with us.  He has lived in this area for about eight years and is planning to move to Dallas soon. 

Bob had a dozer delivered on Monday and I worked on their arenacross track for them.  It hadn't been worked on in a while, so they were happy.  We left South Carolina on Wednesday morning and headed up to North Carolina to get some warranty work done on the motorhome.  The dealership has a really nice campground, so we stayed there for the night.  The weather in Kentucky was predicted to be snow, sleet and cold until Thursday. 

We got up on Thursday morning and headed out for Kentucky.  There are lots of mountains between Ashville, North Carolina and Pikeville, Kentucky.  It was only a four hour drive and there was some snow in the mountains.  We got to Pikeville around 2pm and hooked up with the Trick Tank guys.  The dump trucks were still hauling dirt, so we had to wait a couple of hours to get parked.  We got a pretty good spot.  Right next to the police station and the jail.  There were rumors of wet dirt and they were correct.  There would be plenty of ruts this weekend.

Friday morning came and we were ready to get in the pits and get set up.  I got my computer going and found a signal.  The boys set up their pits and took a look at the track.  Chris' dad, big Chris made the drive over from Memphis and was there to help the boys out all weekend.  No whoops this weekend, the dirt was too soft.  The rhythm section wasn't going to be too big either, just rollers like the whoops, only bigger.  Practice went fine and then we were into the day qualifiers.  Only thirty riders advance to the night show, but the boys were confident.  Everyone made it to the night program with ease.  However, that's where it stopped being easy.  The ruts that formed in practice were smoothed out and we were ready to go again.  In the Lites heats, Chris was the only one to advance to the Lites Main.  The Arenacross class qualifiers were a little bit more difficult as the top 12 riders were seeded into the night show.  Some of those riders are from up North and have ridden ruts forever.  Nobody from our team made the AX main.   Both Brock and Max took spills with Max getting the worst of it.  He tweaked his knee pretty bad and visited with the medics.  Chris was on the second row of the Lites Main and wasn't very close to the front going into the first turn.  He rode fine and had some problems in the ruts, much like everyone else.  He finished 15th and that included two trips to the ground.  Friday night in the hills of Kentucky.  There's always tomorrow.

On Saturday, the track had dried out some, but not that much.  Max stayed in the motorhome all day long.  Cory broke one of his footpegs off Friday night and made his Kawasaki debut by riding Max's bike.   There were a couple of new riders that showed on Saturday, but the rider count was about the same.  Brock rode really well in both in all of his races but was on the second row during the night program and couldn't get a start.  Chris had problems in the ruts during the Lites qualifiers and didn't make the main.  In the AX LCQ, Chris got the holeshot and led for several laps.  He was holding off Cory Green and Josh Woods.  In fact he pulled a little bit on them while they were having a battle of their own.  Only two riders would transfer to the main event from the LCQ.  With two laps to go, Chris got a little lazy going into the bowl turn before the catapult jump and Cory Green slammed into him, knocking Chris up against the Tuf Blocks.  Josh Woods got by too and Chris didn't have any time left to recover.  He didn't make the main, but now he knows that he can run the pace of the top riders, he just needs to step up his training program.  Cory didn't have much luck riding the Kawi and worked as Brock's mechanic. 

After the races on Saturday night, the boys checked out one of Pikeville's night spots.  It was right next to race headquarters and just about every rider and mechanic was there checking out the local talent.  We just hung out on Sunday and watched our "duty stud" Chris work his magic.  He seems to have a new "friend" every weekend.  He claims that it's because he is only 17.   We recruited one my friends from New York to ride for the team in place of Max, since he is injured.  Davey Sterritt from Athens, New York will fly the DBM Team colors until the end of the season.  His brother lives in South Carolina, so we gave his dad, Mark a ride down to meet his son.  It rained on us all the way back to the Trick Tank track.  We got back around 10pm and called it a weekend.  A couple of days practicing here and we're heading to Greensboro, NC.