Racer X Canada's Steel City adventure
SEPTEMBER 6, 2005

Racer X Canada's assistant editor, Danny Brault, and Gopher Dunes' Derek Schuster check out the Steel City golf course... err, I mean Steel City motocross track, Thursday evening.

 

By Danny Brault

Photos: Allison Kennedy

 

This past weekend, Racer X Canada invaded the Steel City national. We left with laughs, photos, a smashed muffler and a dose of sunstroke.

            Thursday morning, our Senior Editor, Allison Kennedy, Derek Schuster and I loaded up the Dodge in London, Ontario and headed south to Delmont, Pennsylvannia for round 11 of the U.S. National series. The six hour journey was filled with anticipation, as Derek and I had two bikes waiting for us to race on Friday’s amateur program, Racer X Canada’s assistant designer Jolene Van Vugt was racing the final round of the WMA series on Saturday and Canadian boys Ryan Lockhart, Pierce Chamberlain and Doug DeHaan were signed up to qualify for the pro national.

 

Schuster finished ninth in the 125 C class on his Monster Energy/ Pro Circuit replica KX 250F.

 

My day didn't start out too well, following a pile up on one of the uphill doubles in practice I smashed the muffler in on the CRF 250 I was riding. I said to Allison before heading out to practice, "Watching racing on ESPN a few years ago with my uncle, I would never have guessed that some day I would be racing Davey Coombs' bike." After this incident, I said to her, "Yep, looking back I would never have guessed I would race Davey's bike then total it." But it was all good, Davey said not to worry about it, we found parts and I still got to race.

 

Good as new! After replacing the muffler and rear brake pedal, I raced the College Boy class and finished ninth overall. Oh by the way, CRF 250s are amazing and next year I'm trading my blue bike in for one.

 

Posers, Tracey Rowan and Kristina Sundal, share a hug with Bill Van Vugt. Rowan and Sundal provided plenty of laughs for the weekend with their video taping antics and beer drinking abilities. Oh, and Bill, sorry about the wake-up call late Saturday night. We're still buds, right?

 

Jolene Van Vugt wore the Wonder Warthog oufit for her parade lap in the first WMA moto. She finished the day 11th overall and was 16th overall in the final standings.

 

Alberta's Jessica Foster finished behind Van Vugt at Steel City and in the final point standings.

 

Nova Scotia's Ryan Lockhart qualified for his first 125 U.S. National. His bike got caught up in another rider's pants in the second corner of the first moto and by the time he fired his bike up, the pack was long gone. In the second moto, he didn't have any problems and finished 27th.

 

Pierce Chamberlain's been testing the U.S. waters for the past two years. Earlier this summer, he qualified for the 250 class at Red Bub, but at Steel City poor starts kept him from making it into the main event.

 

Richmond Kawasaki's Evan Laughridge pitted out of Lockhart's trailer at Steel City with his mechanic big Ed. Laughridge looked his best all year, pulling awesome starts against the 450s to finish tenth overall.

 

OTSFF Suzuki's Gavin Gracyk made the trip to Delmont with his girlfriend and mechanic Ken Thiessen. After posting some of the fastest laps on Saturday, a cold got the best of Gracyk and kept him from posting better results. He ran close to the top ten in both motos, but faded back outside the top 20 in both races.

 

Mike Alessi holeshot both 125 motos, but hometown favourite Broc Hepler came from behind to win both motos. Ryan Villopoto looked superfast and actually passed Ivan Tedesco in the first moto. Kyle Chisholm drove up from Florida in his truck and trailer to Steel City, but didn't do as well as he hoped, finishing outside the top 20 in both motos.

 

"I'm just living right," said Ricky Carmichael after winning the first of two motos at Steel City. Carmichael is a true class-act, as he made several donations to the Hurricane Katrina fundraising that took place at the race.

 

See you at the races!