My first GNCC experience. Big Buck 2020

Sorry for the long post, but when I was doing research and trying to find out what to expect at a gncc I didn’t come up with much. So this is me giving back... I guess.

To start it off this gncc was my first national caliber race/event. Only been racing for about a year and some change, so I’ve only done local races not sanction by the ama ie: Carolina outlaw, 1 ag center arenacross, and some other small local races. To put it simply I’ve never been to a race with more than 200 entries.

Pulling into into big buck the road was stupid skinny. For how much money this event brings in every year you would expect the road to be wide enough for and rv and a car to go down the road without one having to go into the ditch. When we pulled in at night it was hard to find a parking spot so after driving about 3/4 down a dirt road and seeing rvs and campers as far as the eye could see when we saw an open area we seized the opportunity. We quickly found out why the parking spot was open when the rv sunk down 8 inches into the dirt. After assessing the situation we decided to deal with it when we leave. We were also pleasantly surprised to find that we parked about 15 ft next to the track and had a really good spot.

The next morning after the youth bike start we went to signup. I pre registered so it took all of about 5 minute to sign up. Soon after I went to tech inspection. Both signing up and tech inspection were a breeze. At 8:15. No lines, no hassle. For a race with 1800 entries the signup process couldn’t have went any easier. So a bit of advice, sign up online, get your 20 dollar rmatvmc gift card and skip the lines. I left to go to the line at around 9:50. I probably sat on the bike waiting for the race to start for at least. It felt like it took forever for the race to start. I sat on the starting line for at least 30 minutes. This was the only somewhat disappointing thing if the whole race day.

I completely blew the start, I though I was going to get the hole shot because I loved my start button to the left side and did about 20 practice starts. But something about the other bike running and not being able to clearly hear my bike completely threw me off. Came into the first corner 3rd to last out of 15 in open college c. Then I just started picking people off. The whole race I was passing people, I even had a few passes where I would pick off 5 or 6 people at a time. It was awesome! The amount of lines really allowed me to be pass with ease and make up time on the people in front of me. The whole passing and getting lapped process was really my favorite part about it all. I could pass without yelling at the person in front of me until they moved over and I didn’t have to go out of my way to let the faster riders get by. Ended up working my way up to 244/676 and 3rd in college c from row 15/17. The only real bummer about the whole race was that the guy who one my class was on a completely different level. Every one was at most 2 minutes apart from each other except the winner who was 9 minutes in front of second place.

The track started out really fun for me the first lap and a half, but got ungodly rough. My “woods suspension” was just resprung stock mx valving and by the end of the day my hands were destroyed, more specifically my palms. I wouldn’t touch a gncc course with a ten foot pole without soft suspension.

Now we are all packed up and ready to leave, except.. the rv is stuck... after about 30 minutes of shoveling dirt and only getting about 20 ft one of our neighbors helped us pull the rv out with his truck. After that it was straight forward. We left halfway through the pm race (watched the rest on racertv) and had little to no traffic getting out.

All in all it was a blast. And somewhat reasonable compared to going and racing 2-3 classes locally.
SIDE NOTE: there is not service what so ever at big buck. Zip, nada, nothing, not even a little. You can’t make calls, text, or anything.