THE WEEKLY FEED: AUGUST 3, 2016

BLAST FROM THE PAST

DB 10 — Bad Brad Lackey, Husqvarna factory rider in 1976 sits in his plush surroundings in the back of the team box van as the mechanic is looking for answers to the handling woes on his machine. Steve Simons (Long hair, white t-shirt and mustached) who had developed suspension for Fox at the time) watches as Brad’s rear dampers get an oil change. Steve went on to become one of the most important men in motocross as he developed a series of fork technology (anti-cav fork kits, the 44mm fork, bottoming systems and ultimately, the upside down (USD) fork, which he held the patent on) that in the end won Americas its first World motocross championship under the guidance of Brad Lackey in 1982. Steve went on to do pretty well with a little mountain bike company…RockShox which set the standard for MTB suspension in 1989 and held it for many years.

Buttrick Sprints to First Full Gas Victory

Cory Buttrick has raced every KENDA Full Gas Sprint Enduro event since the inception of the series in 2014 and has narrowly missed the podium on several occasions but that all changed at Round 6 of the series in Brazil, IN where the SRT Off-Road-backed racer put his KTM on the top step of the podium after two days of special test racing.

The first test of the weekend was the cross test featuring the motocross track at the Staunton MX facility as well as a rolling grass track section and it was KR4 Performance’s Thad DuVall–who flew to the race directly from the Team USA’s ISDE training camp—who took the test win by 6-seconds ahead of Buttrick with a 5:08.757 test time. MCS Suzuki’s Ricky Russell was 3^rd ahead of RPM KTM’s Mike Witkowski with Austin Lee rounding out the top-5.

A rain shower on Friday afternoon made an already technical enduro test more difficult and Ohio-native, Buttrick, who felt right at home on the test took the win by 8-seconds over DuVall with an 8:04.375 test time to DuVall’s 8:12.488. Ricky Russell, who admittedly was struggling early on getting up to speed, again finished 3^rd in the test another 12-seconds behind DuVall.

Russell found his groove in the 3^rd test of the day, the 2^nd time on the cross test, taking the test win with a 5:05.212 ahead of Mike Witkowski and Drew Higgins. Race leaders Buttrick and DuVall both struggled on the test with Buttrick finishing 5^th with a 5:11.303 but it was DuVall who faired much worse, having a massive crash over a jump on the motocross track and finishing 50-seconds back of test winner Russell with a 5:55.404 test time.

DuVall would bounce back and take the final three test wins of the day to work his way back into 3^rd-place overall. Buttrick would stay consistent finishing 2^nd behind DuVall in the final three tests to keep a 34.4-second lead at the end of the first day of racing. Ricky Russell finished the day in 2^nd-overall, 7-seconds ahead of DuVall.

Day two started the same as day one, on the cross test, which had dried considerably since the start of the event and dust became an issue for riders on the course, but it didn’t slow down DuVall, who started 3^rd, as he took the test win by 3-seconds ahead of Buttrick with Mike Witkowski in 3^rd and Russell in 4^th.

Another test win for DuVall, this time in the enduro test, cut 6 more seconds into Buttrick’s lead and also moved the KR4 Performance rider into 2^nd overall ahead of Ricky Russell.

“After yesterday’s fiasco I knew it would be tough to run Cory down, he rides really well at these. It was a better day today and I was able to get maximum points for the championship which is good,” said DuVall.

Feeling the heat from DuVall, Buttrick wicked it up for the 3^rd test of the day, the cross test, and took the win by 5-seconds over DuVall to help rebuild the lead he had at the start of the day. The SRT Off-Road racer would keep the momentum going into the 4^th test and add another 5-seconds back with another test win over DuVall in the enduro test.

DuVall would rebound and take the final two test wins, good enough to give him the overall win for Sunday’s racing by 8-seconds over Buttrick, but not enough to take the weekend overall event win.

“You definitely couldn’t force the issue out here, it was definitely slick and definitely easy to end up hitting the deck. Thad got me by a couple seconds in the first cross test today and I knew we could handle that, then he got me by six seconds in the first enduro test and I thought that I better wick it back up. Today Thad gave me a couple of more presents with crashes that let me build the gap back up and after that I just stayed consistent and tried to keep it upright,” said overall winner, Buttrick.

Ricky Russell stayed consistent on Sunday to clinch 3^rd-place overall, his first-ever Full Gas Podium finish, ahead of Drew Higgins and Mike Witkowski.

Billy Schlag took the top amateur spot with an impressive 7^th-place overall with his Open A competitors Jacob Rowland, Cody Pingley, and Tristian Stumbo rounding out the top-10 overall.

Becca Sheets and Brooke Cosner had a great battle for the win in the Women’s Pro class with Sheets coming out on top for the weekend overall. Cosner still holds the series points lead ahead of Sheets by 31 points.

The KENDA Full Gas Sprint Enduro Series presented by Moose Racing will continue with its 7^th round on August 13-14 at the Rockcrusher Farm on the Georgia / North Carolina border. Online pre-entry is now open for the event at LiveLaps.com.

Cory Buttrick – KTM – 1:16:25.578
Thad DuVall – HSQ – 1:16:51.092
Ricky Russell – SUZ – 1:17:36.880
Drew Higgins – KTM – 1:18:53.497
Mike Witkowski – KTM – 1:18:55.869
Austin Lee – YAM – 1:19:13.203
Billy Schlag – KTM – 1:19:37.505
Jacob Rowland – HSQ – 1:19:55.262
Cody Pingley – KTM – 1:20:33.959
Tristian Stumbo – YAM – 1:22:06.549

RODNEY SMITH: THE NEW BETA TEST

We have already posted that Rodney Smith has been hired by Beta to help train their athletes. Since his retirement from racing Rod has been doing just this, training racers. Being a hero in Brazil (GP winner) he has helped many racers from that country. Rodney is still a rocket on a dirt bike, and he will definitely be etched in the stone of racing history as one of best all-around racers to ever come out of the U.S. He was a contender for the World MX championships, an ISDE superstar, 4-time Hare Scrambles title holder and his biggest feat is no doubt his five GNCC titles. These came in a time where the series was controlled by racers who dominated the brutal circuits laid out by Dave Coombs. Ed Lojak, Scott Summers and Scott Plessinger were a titantic force in this world and nobody believed that an ex motocrosser from California would ever have a chance to top ten, let alone win championships. This came at a time when Suzuki was known in off-road as an enduro team and when my brother took over the Suzuki Off-road team, he hired Rodney and they decided to go GNCC racing and take on what they considered to be the toughest off-road race series in the states. Rodney kicked butt and his personality helped to sway the cloistered GNCC fan base into Rodney believers.

DB 6 — Rodney in his GP prime, a Factory Chesterfield Suzuki racer is leading John van den Berk before a crazed crowd at the Italian GP.

SUZ_1000 — Rodney’s Factory Suzuki Off-road RM250 circa 2008.

rod03 — Rod in his prime in ’03, though Barry Hawk won the GNCC title that year. Rodney won 5 titles and had 33 GNCC wins for Suzuki. He’ll be a great addition to Beta!

Rodney came to my birthday party a couple of years ago. The one key trait this man has is his love for riding. He still has the itch.

FOUND ON MY DESK

TASTY

6341970Husqvarna400-Cross — How bad did I want one of these? Aberg, Kring, Torsten…my early heroes all on this killer Swedish steel.

WOLF: BACK IN THE DAY