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And that year, KW won it all, while RC got hung up in the fence and Townley rode around the outside of Everts with his feet on the pegs...
The stories would include the pre-trip, trip to NY, car rental agency visit, roadside stops heading to motel, fake credentials, more rental car stories....
but heavens no, I can't tell those here.
2007 at Budds Creek.
Stayed over after race was over into Monday morning. Unloaded bike and rode the track for nearly 30-minutes before getting kicked off by Jonathan Beasley and his sidekick, Roger DeCoster.
2010 at Lakewood.
Now I am old and boring = no stories and too tired to go see Bob Wier play Sunday night after the race at Red Rocks. I am a puss!
broke him out, went to dilla 87
he was on crutches
sucked in the rain
sucked worse watching us "ski" down the hills on a pizza box
USA won
end of story
The Shop
a des nations in europe is a bucket list for any true MX fan IMO,
had a good talk to TFS that weekend as well RIP,
Will probably go next year when it is at Glen Helen.
I didn't see it, but later on a good friend of mine asked me if we saw the Scotsman swimming in the puddle. He told me that the lad belly flopped into a mud puddle and proceeded to do his best imitation of Michael Phelps. He even stuck his mouth in the water and sucked some of that muddy water up and turned his head and spit the water out, like a swimmer taking a breath. Those guys came to party.
Later that night we partied with a group of people from Estonia and had a great time.
1998 Foxhills, watching drunk poms rolling around on the muddy track inbetween races was hilarious. The lesson Stefan gave to the rest if the world on mud riding skills was jaw dropping, it was like he was racing Novices.
2016, I will let you know Monday.......
Was still muddy at Maggiora on Thursday. Late night at hotel bar and being woke up by California texts in the early am by people who forget I am 9 hrs difference in time. That up to today and heading into Milano to sample the street food and then to the track. You are caught up to the minute. Caio
2006 Matterley again Everts in his final professional event, feet on pegs planted.
2013 Teutschental watching Tomac and Roczen taking it to another level.
But my fondest memories are of the after party, How faaaarken cold it was and seeing the biggest bonfire I had ever seen! Listening to my brother and his mate talking to a very drunk Jeff Leisk about racing Sprint cars while Jeff was arranging wood in a fire that was in a 44 gallon drum and the whole time the flames were hitting his arms and burning his uber cool Chambers leather Jacket..
Laughing at Jason Marshall (the Aus 500 rider that year) struggle for what seemed like hours after his mates held him down and pulled the hood of his jumper strings as tight as they could and tied them in a thousand knots leaving the smallest little hole for him to see out of haha..
And last but not least going to leave but found a drunk dude passed out on our car so we go to move him to then realise it was Peter Melton (Multi time Aus MX and SX champ) haha good times
Hoooolleeeeee crap. All moto fans need to see a big race in Europe; it's fantastic. The crowds go bonkers. When Tortelli passed RC in the last race, it was like the whole ground shook with people just loosing their minds. Watching Pastrana jump down that long hill was frightening. And seeing how happy Hughes was to be a part of it was just great.
What else was really cool was seeing riders from other teams at the finish. Obscure countries with riders well below the winners speed and at the finish, being a really hot day, there were a couple guys just collapsed, stripping off their jerseys and pouring water on themselves. But there was a sincere sense of accomplishment just for being there by their team. Good racing.
2001 Namur. Again, I was backpacking around Europe and made my way up there from the south. That track is scary. And it's just so unlike anything we have in the States. It's just so crazy how you can have this old castle and go racing around it. Of course the fans go bananas. There is such intense nationalistic pride that it's more like the teams are racing for God and country. Also, you know how here at a National, you get the feeling a large percentage of spectators actually ride? Over there I got the feeling not nearly as many of the spectators rode but they were INTO it and knew all about who was who and so on. Like the Belgian mom standing next to you knows all the stats on the Belgian riders.
In practice, there was a guy that tried that steep step-down (the one in the background of this photo) and he cased it so hard the ground shook. EVERYONE went "ooohhhhhhh.." and got real quiet. He ended up being OK but damn he hit hard. (I want to say it was a Spanish or Portuguese guy on a 125 but can't be sure.)
It's so much fun over there. For hours after the race people are waving their flags, singing and yelling. Chainsaw motors, airhorns.... it's unreal. Seeing a race over there should be a bucket list item for everyone.
Everts:
Crazyest story in Matterley, check this out : i was there with one of my best friend, who did every MxdN i've been with me. We were sleeping in a tent, and my wallet got stolen during the night. No big deal as far as money was concerned, but the problem was tha the day after the race, i was supposed to go to honeymoon in Kenya/Tanzania, and i had no more ID nor passeport... Let me tell you i hesitate a long time before calling my brand new wife. She was not happy.
We went to the speaker, who made the call several times at the mic to at least drop the passeport, and keep the money. And finally, someone took it back at a beer tent ! Just the passport, alone... I was so releived i could start really checking the race. And, by magic, we were right in the corner where SE72 went by JS7 like he was standing still. And honeymoon was great !
Started out in 2006 though and that year would top my bill, Team USA came to my uncles track for a low key private dealio with a few others in the week practicing, so meeting and watching them was a massive highlight, always remember going WTF (like many others there did) when Stewart nailed a jump that wasn't ever suppose to be there.
Coupled with the weekend itself, massive crowd, the electric atmosphere, watching Everts go out in style, memorable!
Been to quite a few MXdN's. Lommel was great to watch & the beer tent was wild.
Germany in '13, a mate worked for UK moto mag & got us tickets to the after party on Sunday & Monster $$$'s. The party was in center of Halle town so we drove and parked in a street outside a bank. I can't remember much of the end of the night & woke up about 9am, stood outside my van throwing up wearing just a pair of boxers with people going to work as it was a Monday morning. I think 9 people stayed in the vam that night & we had a 9 hr drive back to catch the ferry so we started driving & I was hurling out the window every hr for the next 6 hrs. Got home 1am Tuesday and went to work for 7am. Took about a week to feel normal again...
Pit Row
And of course 2014 in Latvia.
And then I lived in USA for 3 years. It all helped.
I think / hope Webb has the same passion & commitment to this event as RC had & it will rub off on the others over the next few years.
As much as most of the euros love seeing USA not win, without them there it's a much smaller event & i'm sure most would actually rather see USA domination like a few years ago than a MXdN without USA in at all.
far too many stories to count, but every year I've had a great time
As above Matterley was good too, I didn't even realise that security had walked off site that year.... Wimps!!!!
Was setup with a Red Bull rv in the cool pits for the weekend thanks to my friends at NJ skateshop.
A rowdy Brit had a chainsaw without a bar or chain and we followed him through the pits as we knocked on Reed's rv door cheering for Reedy. Reed and Ellie open the door and Rowdy Chainsaw Brit holds the chainsaw wide open, all of us start yelling and cheering for Reed. Reed and Ellie start cracking up and yelling back. We left their rv only to find Ben Townley in a side by side. We all storm Townley with the chainsaw and he had a look of sheer terror on his face, slammed the SxS in reverse, then forward and pinned it out of there!
Lots of other cool shit like meeting Rupert and Alphado.
Amazing times
There was another crazy engine on display at Saint Jean d'Angely in 2011, it was so loud it was ridiculous. It seemed to have been built by a group of Belgian or German mad scientists who took it in turns to crank it up and see who could get the biggest flames to burst out of the exhausts all... night... long...
Anyway, my friends from California fly in and we drive over to Belgium. We stay at a youthhostel in Brussels and we tear up the pillow cases to make signs. One read "Americans Abroad miss Brown K-dub and RC" or something like that. I was hoping someone would notice during the race, maybe take our picture so the world would know that some Americans showed up to the event despite 9/11.
We take in the show. Our sign pretty much goes unnoticed. France wins. Finally, during the podium celebration, I spot Joe Bonnello. So I yell out to him and we flash the sign. He walks over and snaps our picture, we shoot the shit, and a month later the Jan 2002 issue of RacerX comes out. I turn to the MXdN story and there we are with our sign!!!!
The next time I saw Joe was 14 years later at the 2015 Glen Helen USGP. Told him the story. He was stoked. Good guy. Nay....awesome guy!
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