We would truly like to thank everybody who came out to the races or cheered on the riders this past weekend at the Virginia State Championship. There were over 600 people at the park this weekend with ~350 race entries. For the most part, all went pretty smooth. We had one unfortunate wreck that brought in the medevac to tend to Chris Petrunyak who wrecked off the third triple…99% sure due to a chain issue as Jon Jon witnessed it flying in the air before Chris even hit the ground. Chris is doing better but definitely won’t be riding again in 2014. Obviously I was very thankful we had trained medical personnel at the park that provided care for him until the Virginia State Police medevac personnel took over and got him to the hospital. I’ve spent 2 days feeling crappy for Chris knowing how much he loves riding motocross and how painful the recovery process is both physically and mentally. I’ve been teasing him that he can become a track worker like me since I rarely ride anymore and go on our Hatfield trips when he is ready. We had 4 other riders who were tended to by the medical staff on Saturday and Sunday combined but nothing serious enough for transport off the property so I am very thankful for that. My biggest thanks goes to Jon Jon Newton, Billy Martin, and my wife Connie. They are with me each and every weekend and were at the track most of the days leading up to the race. The track is truly a passion for me and I know how lucky I am to have a supportive wife and these two guys. Chris Petrunyak told me he wanted to take a day off from work and help at the track before the race. He worked his butt off on Thursday doing 1 of 2 jobs I hate more than anything…1 is weed whacking and the other is painting. Chris spent 4 hours weed whacking and 4 hours shoveling out the starting gates. Somehow it doesn’t seem fair he crashed after all his help. A special thanks to Jeremy Crute who brings so much experience to our track operations team. It’s no secret to those on the radios that Jeremy is running the show when it comes to the racing action. I just try to look busy so I get the credit. Ken Ferrell was in the house from Birch Creek and brought along his awesome sound system to supplement the road speakers. Ken is also responsible for our broadcasting on 87.9FM. This was definitely the best Robby Whitehead has sounded in a long time. Sherry Robbins and Chrissy Crute are clicking right along in sign up. We got more help at the gate thanks to Jenny Osborne, Jacob Dickey, and Leslie Griffin. We will be looking for somebody to take over for us from 6pm to midnight for the November race so let us know if you are interested. Connie and I are finding that we can’t run from 5am to midnight and truly enjoy the races. A big thanks to all the flaggers. It is such a tough job to be in one spot all day and concentrate. A big thanks to Nita Barnes, Gary Barnes, and Kelly Robertson (scorers), David Larew (ref), and David Martina and Wes Suter. All-in-all from my perspective, each and every person has improved over our 3 races this year and I couldn’t be happier. Believe it or not, planning is already underway for the Thanksgiving weekend race at SF. I already have a list of improvements we can make. For example, all flaggers will have full headsets and radios so they can be aware of everything happening on the track. It used to be 4 key people who had to hear in the midst of revving engines…then we made it 8 to include the spotters. We will make the investment and put about $600 worth of audio equipment on 12 flaggers. We added 2 flaggers to this past race and will likely add 2 more so each of the triples has a dedicated flagger. Great turnouts like we’ve had this year just make it that much easier to expand the support. We are just going to keep expanding until our attendance levels out. We will go back to opening up registration a few hours on Friday evening. We are going to increase the prizes to top 3 in all classes. You can count on seeing the pitbike races back in action in November. I’d say to go ahead and invest in those bad boys because we are going to run them often. Id like to see at least one more class running...and likely a parent/child relay race. Wilmoth Concessions seemed busier this time so that is great. If you had some of the ice tea, you now know how great it is. I just found out they serve BBQ too so I cant wait to try it. I am a big fan of BBQ sandwiches. So Connie found the RockAuto gift certificates Sunday evening in the camper. We will mail these out to the holeshot winners tomorrow. She also found the 10 $10 gift cards RM provided. We will add these to the November pot. I plan to start reaching out to various vendors for small donations so we have a great collection of stuff to give out. Please pray or send good vibes to Chris and anyone who might have gotten knocked around a bit this weekend. Hope to see everyone again at a practice day soon.
Posted on: Tue, 23 Sep 2014 21:56:26 +0000
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