What I learned from the 2014 Ironman GNCC
- Updated: October 29, 2014
Another race left its starting gate without me, and as my camera and I stood there in the dust, I was reminded that I enjoy racing a UTV much more than I do watching one. Regardless of whether I’m in the race or watching it, I still tend to pick up a few things throughout the day, so here’s a list of some of the more interesting things that I learned from the final round of the 2014 GNCC Series in Crawfordsville, Indiana…
The mighty Ironman GNCC in moto-friendly Crawfordsville is twenty years old already. Man does time fly. Each year more and more people flock to this event in both spectator and rider form. I’m guessing there must have been 10 to 15 thousand spectators there. That’s outstanding! What’s more, is including quads, bikes and UTVs they had over 2000 entries! The way it’s going the GNCC Grand Finally may become bigger than the Indiana State Fair, well maybe not that big, but you get the picture. 87 teams shared what seemed to be a shortened version of last years epic Barry Hawk built track, and this seemed to make for a busy race track. Every time I saw an XC1 machine it seemed to be carving its way through dusty traffic. Maybe this is part of the problem that is to come as part of the success of UTV racing. This year’s track was decent, just not like last year’s masterpiece. They seemed to have skipped a really nice section that was there last year. I’m not sure why, maybe it’s an effort to squeeze more action in front of the largest spectator-attended GNCC of the year. Regardless, this was the first track in a long time that UTV drivers didn’t absolutely love.
Nonetheless, it’s not something I just learned, “farr” from it, (sorry, couldn’t resist) but it’s fun to watch my ole pal Tim Farr race through traffic. I’ve been fortunate enough to see this legend rider and now driver do this type of thing for many years now, including a last-to-second place ride on an ATV back in 1997 in Danville, Virginia, where he passed 18 riders in a twenty lap feature, it was a fun race to watch no doubt! Anyway, back to today, Farr won this year’s Ironman wire-to-wire just like he did at last year’s Ironman and looked to be on another level, winning by almost a minute and half over second place. On the podium he said it was a no-brainer selecting 2-Time WXC champ, Angel Atwell Knox as his copilot while his wife Julie was in Japan on business. I found it interesting that Tim was surprised at how well Angel was able to yell to get lappers to pull over much sooner than he’s used to. Knowing both Tim and Julie, I can see where this might have been a pleasant surprise to him since they both have relatively quiet and reserved personalities. But I remember my best UTV GNCC finish, a top ten, happened when I teamed up with motorcycle GNCC champion, Jerrod Fortner, who yelled loud and often, and because of this lappers seemed to respond faster than usual – allowing me to have faster than ever lap times. Now, if entries increase like they seem to be doing and lap times remain about the same, lappers could be very costly to the JB Can-Am #4 team unless either Tim and Julie can be as vocal as Angel, or much better yet the GNCC finally allows XC1 entries to have horns. Besides this helping Farr’s lap times, I believe it would make for a much safer series. If you agree you should write an e mail to Racer Productions and suggest this change for next year. Not horns in all classes, just the XC1.
Speaking of charging through traffic, props to Zac Zac who zig-zaged his way from row six and through Southern California type traffic to put his Zac Zakowski Motorsports Can-Am Maverick in the runner up spot for the day, it was his first UTV GNCC podium and well deserved. And while he was up there he and his team threw breast cancer awareness tee-shirts to the crowd, – a really nice jester from a really nice guy.
Zac Zakowski
Congrats Pro Class GNCC Champs, Kyle Chaney, Chris Bithell and the Can-Am Maverick.
Meanwhile, since he had a 28 points cushion, Kyle Chaney didn’t need to do much to win Can-Am their first National Championship. He rode around with a broken sway bar for the first half of the race, but I guess he and co-dog Chris Bithell got sick of being conservative and put the pedal down, as their Can-Am / Chaney Racing machine went from 15th to finish the race in a respectable eighth spot.
Speaking of Can-Am, boy was it their day…. Thanks to yet another nice piece of driving from #44, Larry Hendershot, Can-Am Mavericks were parked all over the podium trailer. The days of William Yokley and his Polaris equipment having their way round after round, year after year are gone. Can-Am drivers seem to be tired of Polaris equipment raining on their parade. Can you imagine if Can-Am decided not to make race-worthy UTVs like the big four has? Who knows we could still be racing Polaris 800 machines.
Get well soon Vickie Fowler. Her machine rolled in the first turn and she ended up breaking her arm in several places. She’s had surgery and is doing fine, according to what I’ve read on Facebook, but what an unfortunate thing to have happened to one of the few female UTV GNCC competitors. I was curious how this could have happened since doors and nets are required in order to race, and should have kept her arms in the vehicle, After watching a clip of the rollover, it looks as though the driver’s side net was ripped open and maybe this is how her arm came out of the vehicle?? With this, I was looking through some of the video from this and other rounds of the series and noticed a few entries out there without nets. I’m not mentioning this to call anyone out, including the GNCC’s tech inspection crew, what I am doing is mentioning her rollover and badly broken arm because it very well could happen to any of us, and this mention of it can act as a reminder that just having a roll cage isn’t enough. It’s human nature to brace yourself when falling. I’ve heard that it’s actually common for people to instinctively stick their arm out to try to protect themselves. Whether this is somehow what happened to Vickie or not, why not use her accident to possibly help someone else from going through what she has to, right? So don’t let it happen to you! Don’t race or even ride without nets on your machine, even if you feel you’re smart and won’t stick your arm out if you happen to roll it over. You can learn from Vickie’s long road ahead to recovery – don’t think you’re invincible just because you have roll over protection. Go the extra mile for safety, do everything you can, even if it seems like overkill. Let’s keep accidents as minimum as possible. In addition to her bad day, her son Walker didn’t get to de-throne ATV champion, Chris Borich, but man o man did he ever make Chris earn his sixth XC1 National Championship. Thanks to Walker Fowler, this year’s XC1 ATV Championship battle was the best one I’ve ever seen! Hat’s off to both Walker and his mom, what a great couple of competitors and valuable assets to the GNCC series. Get well soon Vickie and congrats to Walker for his incredible season. And if you’re a GNCC UTV racer, don’t worry, Walker is only 21, and pretty involved on the quad side of things, – he’s probably not going to be racing a UTV for a while :)
Polaris Industries worked with the GNCC and held the first-ever official ACE race at Ironman. Eight industry editors were chosen to race identical stock Polaris ACE 570s. I got a big kick out of this, and I believe a lot of other people did too. It reminded me of what it probably was like back in 1969 when Honda’s US 90, later named ATC 90 vehicles might have been seen at the track, complete with an actual paper plate used as a number “plate” taped to the fenders and headlight with a number written on it in magic marker. I’m trying to paint the picture of what the first day of our sport might have looked like, way before the aftermarket industry was born. As an ATV historian who actually raced three wheelers in the 80’s, I have a lot of interest and respect for the roots of our sport. From the looks and curiosity these new ACE machines received I imagine they were probably just like the ones that “those old crazy, yet cool-looking three-wheeled vehicle slash motorcycle contraption thing-a-ma-jigs” must have appeared to walker-byes in the pits way back in the day before many of us were even born. I sort of think history repeated itself the other day at this year’s Ironman, but hopefully the ACE wont end up being banned like the three wheeler was.
Anyway, I think Polaris hit a home run with their first organized ACE race. Polaris may not have won this year’s pro GNCC XC1 UTV Championship (for the first time since the series was born in 2008), but there’s no doubt they received a lot of great exposure to their new machine and brand name. Their new affordable entry-level UTV was seen in a positive light, and this race may be the start of a whole new class of entry-level UTV racers, we’ll have to see. In the meantime, look for an in depth high def video feature on this race as soon as I can edit the video I captured. And in case you didn’t hear, Dirt Wheels, editor and top level rider / driver, Cain Smead took home the gold. And get this, his reward for winning the first-ever ACE race? A new Polaris ACE 570! Very cool!
XC1 Class hubby/wife team, Doug and Julie Fortner are one of several couples that race GNCC together.
Speaking of upcoming features. This year I collected as many video interviews from husband / wife, boyfriend / girlfriend teams as I could. I plan to put together a highlight video that reminds people just how unique, fun and bonding GNCC UTV racing can be. There’s not many racing series that so perfectly allow couples the opportunity to so profoundly share such an incredible experience. It wasn’t long ago that the idea of riding double with someone while racing a GNCC wouldn’t have even been considered, now couples charge through the woods as fast or faster than factory-backed professional racers do, unbelievable! Anyway, if you or someone you know is a couple that races a UTV together in the GNCC series and I didn’t come by and talk with you for this upcoming couples feature, I would love to hear from you so I can include your team in this upcoming feature. Hit me up at jpellan@atvscene.com and I’ll respond back with a bio for you to fill out. Much thanks!
William and Andy Prins of RaceTech.
I got to talk with the UTV Racing King, William Yokley. He’s not as bummed out as a lot of people are about the fact that he won’t be sporting the number one plate, for the first time in five years. What he is is excited about next year. Old happy-go-lucky was all smiles when he told me how much he likes the new Polaris RZR S 900. So much so, he’s going to be racing that machine, with an XP 1000 engine it. And he’s signed a deal with RacerTech. In fact his new Kentucky-based Polaris will have a lot of Michigan-breath on it, as RacerTech plans to help him build the ultimate GNCC XC1 machine. Look out competition! I happened to have put a bunch of time on the new RZR S900, and have to agree he’s making the absolute right choice. The S900 is my favorite UTV of all time, and I absolutely loved my XP 900, and also have much love for the new Maverick XDS Turbo, but there’s something about the sleek new S. I think Yokley’s RacerTech S1K will be the fastest and best machine on the track next year. I could be wrong, we’ll see. Regardless, I think you’ll agree, Yokley would still be tough to beat even if he raced his current machine next year.
The XC2 fight was really tough this year. Four teams; Jack’s II, Recon, Held Racing and Brockway Racing ended up within just six points of one another. In the end Marcus Pratt narrowly edged out Team Recon driver John Henry, who I hear also signed on to race a RacerTech supported Polaris like William’s soon-to-be-built machine for next year. As for this year, the year was all about Can-Am however, as Marcus put his florescent yellow and blue Maverick one point ahead of Team Recon’s 90 points to take the honors in the XC2 ranks, which ended up having more machines than any of the four UTV classes at 41. Congrats to Marcus. After the race I got to hang out with the Jack’s Excavating team and enjoyed a hunk of meat cooked over a trash barrel, sounds barbaric and horrible, but it was actually quite the opposite, and the Pratt brothers and friends sure know how to have a good time.
Congrats to H&H Racing, 2014 XC3 Lites National Champs; John Howard and Jaret Hadden. Godspeed Jaret Hadden.
My buddy John Howard from Fredricksburg,Virginia won the XC3 Lites Championship. John and I teamed up for the final round of last year’s UTV Rally Raid in Tennessee ,and might I add finished runner up on the day, we came within a minute or so of winning the overall together on my stock XP 900. John is a great driver that has a nac for getting the most out of a machine without breaking it. In fact, he has raced the same Polaris RZR 800 for four years now. That’s something that’s pretty much unheard of in UTV racing. He scored the championship with a good friend of his, Jaret Hadden, who ran copilot with him since 2009. Jaret developed brain cancer and despite being very sick this year continued to race with John. I got to meet Jaret, he couldn’t talk all that well, but it was obvious he really enjoyed the opportunity to win the 2014 XC3 National Championship with his friend. Jaret passed away last week on Oct 21 at only 40 years old. Getting to compete in GNCC UTV racing, and chasing XC3 Lites points with his friend John may have helped him look forward to each round he was able to suit up for and hang on to life a little longer. What a nice break from his cancer it must have been for him. Godspeed Jaret Hadden, and God bless John Howard. Look for an upcoming feature on the H&H Racing team and their against-all-odds 2014 season soon.
H&H Racing. John Howard and Jeret Hadden
Congrats to the Stock Novice Class team from Valencia, PA, who drove the Arrive & Ride #555 Polaris machine to a GNCC National Championship. Driver, Rob Van De Mark, teamed up with copilot Ron Rusch, who is a former pro quad rider to nearly win every single event. They scored a 2nd at the opener in Georgia to otherwise lay down nothing but wins in their class. If you’re interested in trying your luck at winning a championship like they did, or just having the opportunity to drive a race-worthy UTV at a GNCC without owning the machine or having to wrench on it to get it prepped for the rigors of hard core GNCC racing then you should consider renting one like Rob and Ron did. Click to the Arrive & Ride website for more info on this.
It was nice to see the big Yamaha track-side display at Ironman, but as a guy that has especially loved Yamaha products and genuinely wants to see ole Blue do as well as possible, it was such a bummer to walk by and see so few available machines for GNCCers. Besides not seeing their rumored 120 HP made-to-race UTV, there was no Raptor 125 or Raptor 250, as either machine will be part of their 2015 lineup due to a fault in production, so I’m told. Hopefully these well-made affordable entry level Yamaha ATVs, which happen to be the must-have machine for youth GNCC ATV racing, will be back in production in late 2015. And at the same time, hopefully the Yamaha Viking won’t be the only UTV available from Team Blue. While I’m at it, hopefully the rumor that Honda’s new high-performance side-by-side, which is said to be equipped with a gearbox transmission that features sequential shifting is also announced in late 2015. Can you imagine if even one of the big-four end up getting involved in UTV racing by releasing the kind of machine we want from them?
Well that’s all for now. The Ironman sure is a great reminder of just how awesome GNCC racing truly is. The biggest and boldest event is the last of the year, a perfect send-off that makes us want to come back to what I believe is the best off-road racing series in the world. I’m thankful I have been able to be a part of the GNCC-family and already can’t wait for the 2015 get-together race-party to start up again in ’15. Hopefully I will get to race again, if not there will still be plenty to learn as a spectator of the fastest growing segment of our sport, – UTV racing.
