Tiger Run GNCC 2021

Here we are on round 5 of the 2021 GNCC season heading to Big Buck property to race the Tiger Run!

Let’s just start off with the damage done from Coker!? The week after was freezing temps here in Ohio again.. so a week later it’s finally warm enough! David has Hayden ride the race bike in the field to warm it up before he changes the oil... 😳 there’s oil leaking out ..well more like running out.. 🤯 SoOo.. he gets it cleaned up and changes the oil to see where it’s leaking from. It is Sunday and Easter Sunday at that! Anyone that knows David he has to figure it out right away, can't wait until morning.. he sends BNR an e-mail explaining what is going on with pictures (Expecting to hear back tomorrow morning).. Thankfully Ryan gets back with him right away saying that it overheated blowing the base gasket! David has to work tomorrow so that means..

It’s Wednesday before the race... BNR Motorsports has the bike ready to go.. YAY! We knew they were busy and it would be tight trying to get it ready before the race. THANKS BNR! David‘s turn for the 2 hour drive one way to pick it up... get home and load the trailer to leave tomorrow after school!

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Thursday

Today is April 15th.. David‘s 35th Birthday!

That means cupcakes were on the menu for this weeks travels! The boys and I decided on cookie dough center, yellow cake, with whipped chocolate buttercream.. we think those are David‘s favorite. Luke is my baking helper .. Hayden just wants to lick the spoon, and Chicka Boom (Lynlee) is chillin' with her snacks!

Rollin’ out..South Carolina for the weekend!

3:40PM we are on the road for 7 hours heading to the Airbnb we booked in Woodruff, South Carolina. We had booked this Airbnb for Round 1 at Big Buck, but we ended up skipping it due to the weather at home and there. We were not able to get a refund; however, we were able to reschedule. Lucky for us Big Buck is one of the tracks they are running twice this year!

I have to throwback here for a quick minute to Big Buck FEB 2020..ONLY our 2nd GNCC we had ever been to.. we booked a Comfort Inn 12 miles from the track. We had NO HOT water all weekend! They kept telling us it would be fixed within hours..then they told me it was fixed.. no warm water let alone hot.. they say to let the water run for a few mins it would get hot.. 10 mins later!? It’s not hot or even warm!? We totally would of accepted warm! There is no showering it was that cold! They had an indoor pool that I put the boys into after being at the track all day Friday! They were only in it long enough to get wet because it was so cold! At least they got the dirt off.. 🤷🏼‍♀️ I am aware we are in a comfort inn here not a 5 star hotel, but we booked it for sleep and showers...After going 2 days with cold water they gave us a 50% refund, Not that they offered.. I just said it was only worth 50% of what I paid, I wanted a refund of 50%.. we booked this hotel for showers and a place to sleep!? .. I was 6 months pregnant so ..🤷🏼‍♀️Really I understand things break, but later found out they knew it was broke before we checked in.. so they should of warned us, and they knew it wouldn't be fixed until Monday!

So I was up for staying anywhere else this trip even if we had to drive further! Actually I just wanted to take our camper so I‘d know what I had!

This ride to South Carolina is going great! No rain.. the boys are getting along.. no traffic hold ups! David drove the first 3 1/2 hours, and then I took over to finish the second half. I thought I was smart to drive the second half to avoid all the winding through the mountains with the trailer... well.. there was a ton of 1 lane construction driving with concrete barriers on both sides of me.😩 Maybe driving through the mountains would of been better! Anyway we make it safely to the Airbnb around midnight. We’re all ready for a good nights sleep! 💤

Friday

Good Morning! It is a little chilly this morning.. in the 50s, but the sun is shining! It will be in the 70s shortly!

Wow this Airbnb is better than we thought! I’m not gonna lie.. we are driving like 1/2 mile or more down this backroad after driving a few miles out of town.. I’m like you sure we are good where we are staying!?..Pulling into this place in the daylight I would not of been nervous at all.. however it is midnight as we are pulling in here.. and we have the trailer, so we are parked at the top of the concrete driveway. We were aware of parking further away when we booked.. no problem! You are able to park beside the garage without the trailer.

The house was well lit so we really did feel safe here even arriving at night. Here we are at this beautiful property with a river flowing through the backyard. You can hear the river flowing over the rocks from inside if you open any of the windows! 😍AND you can see it from the living room and both bedrooms! It reminds me of the mountain streams in Tennessee! ok so in an earlier GNCC blog I said they aren’t near 5 star resorts BUT we give this Airbnb a 5 star⭐️rating for sure!

The view from the Living Room

We rented a full living space in the basement of this house. The people that own it live on the main floors of the house. They were super nice and helpful! I will be staying here again for Big Buck!

I packed us a bag of snacks, breakfast, and food to grill out for lunch at the track .. I’m not going to be hangry looking or waiting for food this race! 😂

David is working today.. the rest of us enjoyed the morning hanging out by the river! David did get to take a little time for a lunch walk outside with us.

2:00pm it’s time to head to the track to get race ready for tomorrow morning!

David and Hayden are off to bike the track..

I’m hanging out at the trailer.. actually enjoying sitting in a chair watching the kids. Luke was excited that we parked next to his friends.. they were occupied on bikes and playing in the dirt. Lynlee was anywhere and everywhere .. never on the blanket I put down for her to play on...at the end of the day she is just as dirty as the boys! She has a bucket of her toys.. nope let’s pick on the boys! What Mom!?

We head out early tonight so we have time for a good meal before race day! As I mentioned earlier it was David‘s birthday yesterday, and he hadn't gotten a birthday meal with the traveling. He gets to choose a place for his birthday dinner... called Rotties 221 Biergarten in Woodruff. It was a neat little place to eat.. we had Philly steak sandwiches😋

And then back to the house for showers and bed! Goodnight 🌙

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Saturday

Rise & Shine boys it’s race day!! 😎🏁

The sun is shining with a little chill in the 50’s, but it is going to get close to 70 or higher by afternoon!

6:45AM we are loaded up heading to the track that’s 21 miles - 30 minutes away. David and I plan on stopping by McDonald's a few miles down the road.. he needs a cinnamon roll, and I need coffee for our pre-race fix. We like to make Luke feel special on his race day to .. he says he needs pancakes with butter and syrup!

Hayden doesn’t want anything from McDonald's because it will upset his belly before the race..We don’t want that for sure! He was fine eating one of my cookie dough cupcakes for breakfast.. 🤷🏼‍♀️

This is what happens to cupcakes when 5 of us are traveling in a truck... David might of propped his arm up on the lid of them while driving down the road 🤦🏼‍♀️.. They are smashed and half the icing is on the lid..Hayden doesn’t care they still taste good!

7:30AM we roll into the track .. ready for race day!! Hayden has been riding his stock bike almost everyday at home... Let’s see if that shows today!

Hayden says his favorite is splashing through the mud near the bottom of the hillside.. of coarse Hayden covered in mud started years ago.. David is kinda getting used to it but still gets on him.. So Hayden made a deal he’d wash it himself!

8:00AM is the micro quads race .. the Track goes right by the trailer so we enjoy watching them rip by waiting to see who’s leading while Hayden is getting ready!.. a lot of the MXC1 class was competing with Hayden last year in the MXC2 ..They all had good battles going on throughout the year! Hayden cheers on Bryson Dickerson, Kody Buckhannon, and Reed Stevens 👊🏼🏁! They will all jump on over to the youth race once they finish the micros; however, they all race DRRs in the youth so they aren’t in Hayden's class.

8:40AM We all head over to the start.. Hayden ran his bike through inspection before going to the start, then heads on over to the line up before the start. Hayden is so excited this morning.. he's been talking about getting a top 5 again.. and really trying for a top 3 for his dads birthday! (Like I've said previously we are really happy with a top 10, but we coach him on for a top 3 because we know he can do it!)

9:46AM The green flag is out teeeennnnn seconds!!

Luke, Lynlee, and I are standing at turn 1 as usual ready to video! After his start at Coker I'm excited to see him get out there again! .... Here they come... No bright orange/red helmet...where is he!? .. he's sitting on the line... the rest are around turn 1.. ahhh oh no what's going on!? Ok.. Here he comes... it's ok the race is an hour.. a lot can happen!

Here comes David.. so what happened!? His bike would not start.. he was trying, but it wasn't starting. Finally, the bike starts, and he is off ..mad to start with.. yikes! This is the first race ever that Hayden didn't get off the line with the rest of the bikes; things happen. Unfortunately, BNR had told us this week that the starter clutch was going out. They have them on order, but they were back ordered. His bike had been starting fine once it was warmed up. He kept it warmed up, and it started every time a line took off... until his green flag flew.

The kids and I stroll on over towards the finish. We get there, and I haven't seen Hayden yet..Here comes Bryson Dickerson.. ok Hayden must of went through, and I missed it. I know that Bryson starts after Hayden, and he should come through before Bryson if all is good..So I stroll on over to the live scoring to see if he had made up some time. He hasn't scanned in.. hmmm that's not good. So we are looking around the finish area.. hanging out I'm sure he'll be coming.. maybe his bike shut off and won't re-start.. or maybe he hit a tree!? No I'm sure he is fine.. lets just think his bike shut off... Bikes are coming through from the YXC1 for the 2nd time.. they never lap Hayden until closer to the end!?

Ok NOW we are 20 minutes into the race..

I see Bryson's mom, stop her to see if maybe she had seen Hayden or David or knew anything really!? She hasn't seen them... now I know something has for sure happened ..trying to stay calm, but I'm pushing this stroller back and forth all over around the finish trying to see different parts of the track. I've tried texting and calling David I dunno how many times, but there is no service here! Glad we purchased those walkie talkies that we left at home in the camper!! 😩

OH FINALLY, there’s David on his bike riding out of the woods.. he looks calm like nothing has happened!? that must be a good sign? as I'm making way towards him.. I've yet to see Hayden come through!? He sees I'm about to be in a full panic mom moment! David says he went looking for Hayden when Bryson came through where he was watching; he knew something had happened to Hayden for sure. David was heading back to the finish to find me to see if I had seen Hayden. On his way he saw Hayden on the track going.. didn't seem to have any issues. So we are like ok.. we do not have a clue what has been happening, but he's still going and hopefully keeps going safely! That was a 23 minute 54 second lap! The longest first lap ever! Checks in 18th, 2 minutes 30 seconds behind 17th.

Let's hope the rest of the race is better! Here he comes from lap 2.. 14 minute 44 second lap checks in 15th! He's racing hard trying to make up all the minutes he has lost today.. definitely rippin' now!

Lap 3 checks in to 12th place! Wow, I'm really impressed after lap 1! I thought he'd be lucky to finish anything much ahead of last.. not because I doubted him, but the fact is he lost around 7 minutes on that first lap.

White flag is out; last lap! Thank goodness mom can't take many more laps today!

He increased his lap time again to 14 minutes 36 seconds!

Finishing 11th out of 19 bikes!

72nd out of 121 overall

We head on over to get the race stories! Yikes the bike is covered in oil.. race boots, race pants ... oil everywhere.. NICE. The bike was still running when he finished, but is now shut off. The oil cap is barley hanging on .. looks like it's been loose splashing out oil. No way of telling if had any leaks from any particular place. We'll have to wait for it to cool down to check the oil; hoping there is enough left that the motor is still good.

Anyway..so what happened on lap 1!?..First, we see the GoPro is broken off of the handle bars?? Hayden said he was making his way through the pack trying to make up for his delayed start when he came up to a bottleneck. He saw what he thought would be a line around them all...3...2..1...BAM he's wedged between 2 trees!! ".... that was a little tighter than I thought."

YOU SEE WHY I ALWAYS RESORT TO HE HIT A TREE WHEN I DON'T SEE HIM!? THANK THE GOOD LORD ABOVE HE WAS NOT INJURED!

AND HERE'S A SNIP OF THE VIDEO COVERAGE.....

(sorry it's a video of a video until we can figure out the best program to edit these.)

Hayden instantly jumped off his bike to try to get it out of the trees.. yelling "I need help!" He had his goggles, helmet and gloves off at this point trying to get his bike out. There wasn't anyone around so Hayden ran over to a couple boys to see if they could help him. They were a couple younger boys that ran over to help, but the bike was really wedged. Thankfully the track sweep was coming around at that time, and he was able to get Hayden's bike out of the trees.

One of the boys had gathered up Hayden's helmet, goggles, and gloves so he could get himself back together and on the track!

The GoPro is now pointing at the sky for a very few minutes and then it fell off... laying in the track as we see bike tires going over it.

The rest of the laps were awesome.. no issues.. Hayden made sure to point out... "Hey mom, my last lap was awesome today!" Yes bud, it sure was...and we are proud of what he did to get back on the track and how he raced hard to the end to get the best place possible with all the negative of the first lap! He says he’ll never give up.. I felt pretty good when he was happy with his race to, not beating himself up about it, but rather had thought of ways to avoid that scenario next time! AND his bike had plenty oil left ..now to get the starter clutch fixed before the next race!

We want to say Thanks to the guy who picked up Hayden's camera on the track and turned it into registration.

These results are copied from the GNCC site. You can find official results on www.gnccracing.com

We head back to the trailer to get some lunch..and chill for the afternoon.. We’ll hang around to watch the 11:00am ATV race and 2pm pro race. Luke will have his stacyc race at 6:30pm!

This boy picks out his own clothes.. and has for years... I thought I taught him better than that.. he doesn’t care! I let him go... he’s a full hearted American Country Boy that loves racing...

camocrocs

American Flag Socks

orangeshirt

his closet is full of GNCC t-shirts ... that’s his only style #mototees

2:00pm - we can sit at the trailer to watch the pros go by.. here they come for the first lap... #1 Walker Fowler...

and #2... Chris Borich..

After a 2 hour race... the final results were:

🥇Brycen Neal

🥈Cole Richardson

🥉Walker Fowler

We head up to the food trucks for some Italian icees 😋.. all of us except Hayden.. he wanted a Cherry Vanilla Ice Cream Cone! The food trucks are lined up behind the finish so we head over to check out the podium madness.. Sorry we missed the first 2 podiums but made it for 3rd place. Come to find out Fowler had a little tree trouble today to! ... along with a few others!

The Specialized Turbo eMTB race is lined up for their start off to the side of the finish.. the boys want to see them take off..

The Pro start:

Next is the Stacyc race... Luke says he doesn’t want to race today, he’s too tired. Since we were already here we encouraged him to race with his friends. David tries to bribe him by picking up his toys for him.... nope not today!! I am sure he is tired after the long day at the track!

We finish loading everything up to head back to the house. As we are driving out of the track Luke says.. ”next time bring wood and the fire pit if you want me to race!“ 🤣 ohh so there’s the real reason!! So hopefully next time you’ll see Luke back out there!

We order Pizza Hut to go and head back to the house to eat, shower, and relax before heading home tomorrow!

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9am Sunday Morning we are on the road home bound for our last race of the southern states this year! GNCC will be moving into Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia!

Thanks for reading! ❤️🏁

Disclaimer: My full throttle blogs are for entertainment purposes only. These are my families stories to share for fun, and our opinions only. I am not giving professional advise or recommendations. Thank you for reading!