Let’s start off this Newsletter with some exciting news... it’s time to announce the first winner of our monthly website giveaway. Congratulations to Doug Monahan of Albany, OR and thanks again for signing up! Seeing as we are a few days late in getting this Newsletter out, your autographed jersey should probably have already arrived in your mailbox!
 As for everyone else out there who has signed up but missed out on the jersey, the great news is that you are all in the running for this month’s giveaway, which is the top of the line Revelation X2 helmet (pictured below) from M2R. The winner gets to choose the size and color of this awesome product. Thanks to M2R for their unbelievable support of my racing efforts and website.
Well now, lets pick up where we finished off with our last Watts Happening. We were in the state of Kentucky staying close to the Mammoth Caves National Park. We got to do the 2 hour Frozen Niagra tour which was well worth it. We thoroughly enjoyed it and there was some amazing sights to see. Eden absolutely loved the experience and spent the whole tour waving her arms, kicking her legs, and making excited ga-ga noises. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to do the 6 hour adventure tour where you get to have the miner’s light and have to crawl through all of the small crevices deep in the cave system.
The day after our cave tour, Glenn Kearney came over to visit, so we went to the Ballance MX track and put a heap of laps in, some of which you can see in the video clips section of our website. There’s also a video from earlier in the year from the Bithlo MX track in Orlando. The quality of these clips aren’t the best but seeing as Carrie is doing the filming and editing herself, she’s learning as we go along, and knowing her it won’t be long before it is top notch. We’ll get it figured out soon on how to get the audio on there as well. We should have video’s of a few other locations up within the next week. Following our moto, myself and GK then went for a 2 hour MTB ride to top things off.
From there, we started heading towards my next race, Rd. 3 of the OMA Nationals (April 30) in Judah, southern Indiana. On the way we stopped off at Evansville, Indiana for 2 days to do some more riding with GK. We stayed at the Scale Lake Campground, which has an awesome MTB loop through the bush around the outer perimeter of it that Glenn and his mechanic/Suzuki semi driver Shane Nalley hammer on all the time. Apparently Rodney Smith’s mechanic Rod Harris, who also lives close by was the one who made all of these trails. By the way, thanks to Rodney and Shelly and Ali Harris for the superb lasagne-we'll have to repay the favor some day! Saturday had us out at the Black’s private moto track and it was so unreal, prepped just right with the right amount of moisture in the soil. I rode the best and felt the strongest on the bike than I have for a long, long time so I was looking forward to pinning it at the OMA.
Click here to see if I rode the OMA as good as I did at the Black’s.
Following the OMA we made the drive southwest to Branson, Missouri to camp out for a week of theatrical shows and old people driving slow. It took two days to clean up and get re-organised from the mud in Judah.
On the Wednesday I got to go trailriding at a property about 20 minutes north of town, with my friend Steve Leivan, who is the current and 10 time Missouri Hare Scramble champ. There were also about 10 other great guys who love to ride dirtbikes that came to make the day complete. Apparently this 2500 acre piece of land used to be owned by a German rock band, and there is a killer house there with an indoor/outdoor pool. Mad! The 35 miles of trails were awesome and in perfect condition. An excellent day on the KTM’s.
 For the rest of that week some of the things we got to do were to see a show called Cirque, which was pretty good, but only strengthens our resolve to eventually get to see a real Cirque De Solei show one day. We also spent some time at an indoor water park, which Eden absolutely loved, we went to a huge fish hatchery, and went fishing down at the lake where, much to Carrie’s chagrin, she didn’t hook a monster trout. Lucky we had bought some nice trout for dinner earlier that day at the supermarket…
Friday night we got to Seymour, Missouri for Rd. 6 of the GNCC, just in time to get a friendly push in to our parking spot from one of the dozer’s. That was nothing compared to Saturday though. It rained all day and the whole venue turned into a huge mud pit. Virtually every vehicle had to get pushed in and towed out.
Click here to read my race report from the mud.
We stayed at the track on Sunday night and just sat back and watched the mayhem as everyone tried to get out of the slop. Very entertaining. But the big highlight was to watch the GNCC crew try to get the Factory semi’s out. The first two got out with some help from the dozer’s but the Yamaha and KTM 18 wheeler’s weren’t going to budge that easily because they were basically buried to the axles. They ended up having to call out a wrecker at $200 an hour, for 5 hours, to winch them out. Even then, all that happened first off was that the massive wrecker truck winched itself back through the mud towards the semi’s! So they had the two small dozer’s on the front of the wrecker truck to help hold it in place, and the big dozer pulling on the front of the semi. By 10:30pm they finally had them out and on the road. I’m still annoyed that I forgot to take some pics of the whole thing to post here. Jeff Russell and his remaining GNCC crew still hadn’t eaten dinner by that stage so we quickly cooked them up some chicken and rice as a reward to their great work!
Monday morning we got dragged out and started our 4 hour drive to St. Louis. From there we have two races in Ohio then it’s off to Oregon for the Funky Chicken National Hare Scramble
Link of the Week!
BILLYMORRIS.NET
Billy Morris has some of the finest fingers in the book when it comes to playing guitar. He has played for some of the great hair bands, Warrant and White Snake. When he isn't brushing his flowing mane and rocking out on the guitar, he's riding a KTM. He's a total dirtbike enthusiast and is a regular at the GNCC events. Give his site a browse. He's got CDs for sale, and a great little Billy Morris Superhero character that you can monkey around with! Great guy and a great site!
Hey guys, If you're anything like me, you haven't thought of anything to get your 'ol girl for Mother's Day, which is Sunday, May 14th. Well, this place will save your life...and win you loads of points. All women love chocolate, right? Norman Love Confections has the best handmade, hand-painted chocolates, ready to be sent to most places in the US. Yeah, they're pretty pricey, and you have to pay overnight shipping, but for that "Mother" in your life, nothing is too good, right? And if you've already bought that card and the carnations, hold on to this info. There will be a day when you want to go riding with the boys, and the wife has her own honey-do list for you; these sweet little morsels may just help her around to your way of thinking!
My Favorite Snap...
Things To Look Forward To...
 The Funky Chicken Hare Scramble in Elkton, OR May 28, 2006! This is probably my favorite race of the year- great people, great scenery, great track!
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