STIMILON Race Report

Great race report by Dean!

Our crew consisted of Dean, Adam, Billy as well as a cast of
characters including CA Money on her pink KTM144, Scotty, The Mouse
and various members of the Stimilon scene.

It was my first time riding Southwick; of course I’ve attended many
nationals here and always thought it looked pretty hairy. I knew it
would rain on race day and since Adam had set our tent up accordingly
and the whole gang was there, I didn't sweat it.

About 3 minutes after we pulled up I noticed some odd music playing
next to us, some kind of Spanish rap music, but based on really sh*tty
American R&B so it truly sucked. Think, "I'm in Miami, girl" but
actually "Estoy en Miami, chica" and you'll maybe get an idea of how
truly it sucked...so Viva Brazil!

Anyhow, after a night of pitbike racing, burnouts, fireworks and golf
carts with police sirens going by our tent, it was race morning....I
knew that because the Brazilian Nation decided to start the music at
6:00AM...thing was, the riders meeting wasn't even until 8:00 AM
earliest…so I was going to squeeze at least another hour of sleep
outta that. I very politely asked the fellers to "f**kin turn that
f**kin sh*t off you g*dd*mn motherf***ers" and it did stop, so Viva
Brazil!

I groggily put on my (here it comes...) SHIFT Strike gear, Alpinestars
Tech 8 boots and Scott goggles. I looked longingly at the coffee
stand...but it wasn’t open yet…apparently too early. Yeah thanks for
that and Viva Brazil!

OK so now it's way overcast, it don't take a weatherman to know which
way the wind blows, so I prepared for rain by doing nothing special.
I did think about having a beer but forgot to bring one down to the
line

And as a different take on my usual crappy morning attitude, I
actually was excited and a bit nervous about racing here at the
fabulous MX338 in Southwick.

I was entered in 2 classes, 45+ with Dean, Billy and Scotty and 35+
with other friends like Matt Francis and Dave O who of course was
running the event (awesome job Dave O). 45+ was a joke it was raining
so hard. I dropped behind the gate onto the pad and it just went
"splash". I just chuckled to myself.

How much fun was this going to be? Lots.

When the gate dropped I hammered the YZ125 and it responded by going
nowhere fast. I let off and got a bit of traction and off I went up
the hill into the first left. After a bit of bouncing around, we
straightened out, riders started getting some feel and some started to
get on up the hill.

I meanwhile decided it would be best to keep it pinned and use every
available line on the track to confuse and ultimately outwit my
hapless opponents. This plan was working well until I realized that
vision may be the key to keeping this up so I tried to pull my awesome
SCOTT roll-off string while riding through some ruts...hmmmm I'm
apparently not too good at that. I did finally get some vision and I
pinned it again and continued my bumble and weave tactic while
laughing in my helmet.

This was some funny sh*t. Memories are made of this sh*t and I didn't crash!

The track was insane! I had never really ridden sand before, much less
in the torrential rain and on a 125! I could have used a CR500. I'm
sure Dean was loving that 300cc's of GasGas 2-stroke. I never stopped
as I figured that was death for sure, I don’t think I was ever not on
the pipe, even though I wasn't going anywhere fast. The rain had made
little rivers running down the jump faces and cool stuff like that
(think I saw fish) so it was a nightmare to try to go fast, but you
couldn't just roll around so that was some fun. I had about a billion
saves...

Somehow during that race I came up on Dean, I think it was after the
tree split uphill and funny how you can be best friends, but during
the race I saw him and thought "Excellent! I just passed
someone"...damn racing makes you ruthless. The worst part was when he
passed me again...there goes that race place...at the end it was
Billy, Dean, Me, Scotty...

Contrary to popular belief, I didn't hurt my wrist racing, I hurt it
when a guys bike was tipping over, I went to grab it and my thumb got
caught in the plastic and got wrenched it out about 90 degrees. That
will teach me. So I did start 35+ but only got 2-3 laps in and that
was it, could not shift anymore. That was it. I don’t even know who
won!

Then it was back to the campsite for more Viva Brazil...but by this
time I was used to it - it was just funny and I was digging it. The
dudes across from us had a 600 foot trailer and blow up dolls and
palms trees, random peeps stopped and did burnouts on a burnout board
we had, cute girls gave out VitaminWater from golf carts, bands,
fireworks, beers, pitbike racing and the best part – MOVIES!. It was
just a blast. The next day I felt good enough to ride light practice
in the beautiful SUNLIGHT…

Wanted to thank Dean and Team420 for my race fees and just being a
great friend, DaveO and the Stimilon crew, Adam for the tent and
sleeping stuff, Ralph and Diane of MX338, SHIFT for the gear,
Alpinestars for the Tech8’s, NOXii Clothing for the warm and stylish T-
Shirts, Risk Racing for the palm protectors as well as Billy for the
ride and all the peeps who helped us out. See you next year!