Gold Cup adventure, round 2 Milestone

I'm chronicling the adventures we (my son and I) are having at the 2012 Gold Cup series.
Here's the first round: http://www.vitalmx.com/forums/Moto-Related,20/Gold-Cup-adventure-round-…


I was able to take parts from the 3 RM85's I have to make 1 functional bike. With a fresh piston, a new front tire, and a spare back wheel, we left the house at 2:30AM.

We arrived at 7:00 on Sunday morning to discover a very "jumpy" track. This made my son a bit nervous, as we never practice jumps, and our local practice track doesn't have any large jumps or timing sections. We registered him for the 85 12-13 class, and the 85 open class.

Unlike Perris, Milestone had several tracks to ride on besides the main track. I really liked having the ability to get warmed up, try different bike settings, or keep the kids from going crazy while waiting for their moto. This made the event much better. When considering what track to visit in the future, having those options is a definite plus.

Practice didn't go too well, as Jon was intimidated by the turn, jump, turn, jump, jump, turn, jump, JUMP, turn, whoops, JUMP type setup. When the gate dropped for the first 12-13 85 moto, he wheelied off the line and rounded the first turn in last. By the time the 5 laps were over, he'd passed one rider and was jumping about 3/4 of the obstacles.

Class 12 was the 85 open, and he once again wheelied off the line, but improved his first turn position slightly. By the end of the second lap, he had manned up and was jumping everything, but was still struggling with a small 5 jump rhythm section. He was being much more aggressive, and was able to pass a few riders before he slid out in a corner. Getting back up, he caught and passed some riders only to slide out again. One more spin out put him firmly into last place. Coming off the track he complained that the track was slippery because they'd just watered it, to which I reminded him that everyone else rode on the same "slippery" track. Despite coming in last, he was pleased that his performance was improving.

They were getting about 5 classes an hour done, and with 24 classes, there was quite a bit of down time before his next moto in class 8 was ready. We used this time to try out different gearing, play with jetting, and even got a bit of sleep in the bed of the truck.

The second 12-13 85 moto began with a rider ramming the gate. Jon saw the gate move, and began to launch. He pulled the clutch back in just in time to see the gate actually drop. As the gate grazed his front tire, he motored out for another poor start. While the really fast kids checked out, Jon was able to pass 4 or 5 riders and then settled into what amounted to a uneventful practice session. There was simply no one around him for 4 1/2 laps. Unfortunately, all the kids he had passed pulled off prior to completing their 5 laps, so he was once again the last kid off the track, even though he wasn't actually last in the results. Overall he was getting much better, and had even managed to get the 5 jump timing section a couple of times.

With about 15 kids on the line for the second 85 open moto, Jon pulled about a 10-12th place start. By the end of the first lap, he'd moved into about 8th place, and was rapidly gaining on a pack of 4 riders. No question he was faster, and given some of his creative lines, it looked like a top 5 finish was pretty likely. In the far back section of the track there is a very large step-up to a tabletop immediately followed by another triple step-up. Jon caught the back of the pack on the triple step-up. Unfortunately, this is only the 9th or 10th race of his life, so being in the air with 3 others around him is still a bit of an alien feeling to him. Just before he left the lip of the triple, he realized the last kid was only doubling the jump, and they were about to re-create the Morais/Canard incident. Chopping the throttle kept Jon from landing on the other rider, but he came up quite short on the landing. All I could see from my obstructed vantage point was a back fender in the air way up in the air where it shouldn't have been, then nothing.

I carefully ran across the track (is it me, or do all kids tend to crash as far away from their parents as possible) to find a flagger trying to keep him from getting run over. By the time the moto finished, there were 6 or so workers and emt's tending to him. Small rant- most of the top riders ignored both of the yellow flags, choosing to continue to triple right past them. That ticked me off a bit since the whole "no doubling or passing under a yellow flag" was repeated ad nauseam over the loudspeakers throughout the day.

He ended up with a bruised pelvis and I ended up with a slightly bent up bike to fix. No ER visit, but he's back on crutches at school this morning.


The next round in 2 weeks is Glen Helen, and he's really excited about that. He loves big hills, nasty ruts, big bumps, and unlike the other 4 races in the Gold Cup series, he's actually ridden on that track. The fun continues!