Wednesday, March 7, 2007

Madness in Florida

What a wild couple of days! First Tuesday was the opening round of the Can-Am GNNC series. All eyes were on David Knight and long time verteran and former GNCC champ Shane Watts stole the show. I’ve never seen someone so fiery on the podium. He was so adiment about the victory being for everyone who buys their bikes and parts. Unfortunately we didn’t see the insane burnout we were all hoping for.
After the race Weege and I had planned on going back to Tampa to stay with Racer Production IT/score guy/ahhhhh-Tim Boryk. Enroute from St. Louis to Florida Weege had run into Chad Reed in the airport. We started talking about how cool it would be to meet up with him during the week here and get a Racer X Films with him. One thing led to another and it seemed like it was going to happen. A warm trail went cold when we hadn’t heard anything back from “Camp Reed.” At that point we sort of were hoping he hadn’t been hurt for a second year in a row before Daytona. After calling back to check in with the boss we figured out that Chad had been busy with teammate Nathan Ramsey and his wrist accident.
Over dinner at Steak-N-Shake we decided to skip out on Tampa and head north to Daytona. We made a few calls and met up with Road Racer X Senior Editor Laurel Allen. We were bummed on the whole Reed deal but things happen. Our back up plan was to head into downtown Daytona and have a little fun on video. Internet problems in the hotel had us up late and then some Russian (as per LCA) bikers we’re having some fun next door. Needless to say our wake up call came a little too early. We got it together and were off to get credentials and some much needed coffee when DC called and said he had just talked to Jason Thomas. Evidentally JT$ was heading out to Grant Langston’s place to go ride for the day. A few calls later and we were on our way to Orlando. Once we finally found the facility we were absolutely amazed. Grant has a huge chunk of land with an outdoor track and a SX track. It was even cooler that we were there on the same day he was cristening the SX track. Check out Racer X Films later tomorrow to get the scoop on Grant’s SX return!
After everyone had their fun on and behind the camera we had to rush to the Orlando airport to pick up ad man extroidinaire Jason Berry. We had heard rumors of some nasty weather in Morgantown and Jason confirmed the rumors.

1 comment:

Mom! Toilets blogged! said...

How about that Shane Watts! Of all the events in the history of Daytona, I wish I could have seen this race.
I have never seen a rider drop from grace as bad as Shane has. He was unstoppable in 00 and now 7 years later he tops one of the toughest races of the year. Good for Shane! Now he just needs to do it 11 more times!