Helloooo! Let me just first mention that I broke my pinky metacarpal on a rope swing (into a lake...please don't ask how this foolishness REALLY happened). So..no CC or MX AHRMA for me for a month or so - I'm so bummed that I could not participate at the Hancock, NY event this last weekend. Crappola! [B)]
But enough about me. How about the 2008 ISDE Trophy Team!?! Here's the You Tube link introducing the guys:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4z0m3AAQQM
I have such high hopes that THIS is the line-up that could...I don't want to jinx this thing....WIN an overall. And or course there is Kurt Caselli himself (on the Penton, oops.., KTM 300). What a tremendous competitor - he could also finally get what has alluded the Americans for so long - an individual Overall!! [:p]
I'm not into the politics of GNCC or WORCS or whatever, but I am sooo grateful that the factories got their logo and marketing guys out of the way to ensure this line-up of guys could all make it. This team now has the nucleas of the Jr Trophy team that won 1st place two years ago. Yea, baby! And how those 90 degree, dusty Greece conditions? Abbott, Dietrich, and Caselli must be pinching themselves!
I just thought it might be fun to have a thread following THE event that Pentons and KTMs have been such a big part of. So post your thoughts, POGGERs.
GO USA!
Check out Caselli's shirt in this interview. :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j43cxQPZr88&feature=user
Brian
'73 Berkshire
Team d-Con
//www.d-conproducts.com America's #1 Rodent Control Brand
OMG...it'a a sign, definitely a sign!
I'm gonna burn some Hi-Point oil at my little Penton toolbag/alter and call upon the gods - John, Jack, Jeff, Tom, Dane, Carl, Billy, Dwight, etc....to look over our 2008 Trophy Team.
Hmm...I hope I didn't just put a curse on them! ;)
Day one results from Cycle News:
http://www.cyclenews.com/ShowStory.asp?HeadlineID=12884
Ernie P.
Chattanooga, TN
Great! I guess we're doing okay, considering Nathan Wood's day...Go Kurt Caselli, go Ricky, go team! Catch those French Fries and I-talians and show them how The West Was Won.
BTW - I get all misty-eyed/patriotic when I see the blue helmets with the white stripes. It's my goal (wish) to find a decent open face, do it up in the colors, and then get as many of the 73 Trophy team guys to sign it as I can find. Of course, I also hope I can kick Ernie P's butt in an Intermediate 125 Classic class one day, but fat chance of that happening...[8)]
If you look real close it looks like Caselli's shirt is signed by JP too. That is really good to see a current world class rider giving JP his proper respect.
Brian
'73 Berkshire
Team d-Con
//www.d-conproducts.com America's #1 Rodent Control Brand
Brian, just a note, these shirts are in the KTM hardparts catalog and all of them have JP's signature, regardless it is way cool that Kurt has the Penton shirt on !!, GO TEAM USA !! thanks, Mike G. from Jersey.
Mike Gallagher, Camden County, NJ.- 69, 70 + 71, 125 Steel Tankers, 72 Berkshire, 72 x 2, 73 x 2, 125-6 Day's, 74-6 Day, 73 Jackpiner, 75 - 250 H/S, 74 1/2 Mint 400
Nice pool in the back ground! The landings from the diving must be tuff!
I was looking thru special test results for Day 2. The Yanks were having a great day thru Test 5... BUT Kurt must have dropped some points or time between tests 5 and 6. He went from +25 seconds to 2nd overall, to -49 seconds and about 5th overall. Woods wons a special test and Ricky D, Woods, and Abbott continue to perform strongly. If you can find the "live" link, they post each of the test results (along with individual overall..kinda like WRC stage stage) during the day.
http://www.isde2008-live.gr/
Cycle News should have something up in a bit.
Cycle News reported that Kurt was penalized one minute in a test for "cutting the course", but you can read Kurt's version of it there, too. The US Team is appealing the penalty. Hopefully it will be overturned and he will be back on top where he belongs!
Jeff DeBell
Caselli is out with a concussion.
http://www.cyclenews.com/ShowStory.asp?HeadlineID=12897
Brian
'73 Berkshire
Team d-Con
//www.d-conproducts.com America's #1 Rodent Control Brand
I'm CRUSHED!! No Caselli...no chance for...wait, this just in: this team is still kicking major butt without Caselli - that's how strong they are. Still third overall after Day Three, and Dietrich is running fourth overall individual and the Yanks WON 3 of the 6 special tests on the day.
We shall overcome.....
Very Exciting:
OFF-ROAD - Race for the World Trophy Podium
By Jean Turner
Race for the Podium 9/5/2008
At our time of publishing the Day Five race report from the ISDE in Serres, Greece, the U.S. Team actually didn't know they had been trumped for third in the World Trophy standings. They weren't very happy to hear the news upon returning to the hotel.
"It's amazing that after five days of racing between ten guys, it all comes down to less than three seconds," Destry Abbott said.
The team has every reason to be confident going into tomorrow, as the Americans have dominated the motocross test all week, but they're definitely feeling the pressure.
Tomorrow's motocross test will consist of two motos per class with around 30 riders in each race. The start will be staggered with four riders off the line at a time and be a total of eight laps.
Keep an eye on CycleNews.com to find out if the American team can pull off a podium finish in the 2008 International Six Day Enduro and if Monster Energy Kawasaki's Ricky Dietrich can come away with an overall podium finish.
Go Team USA!
Ron Carbaugh
How about Fredette, how is he doing?
Rod
Thanks for the update on how Day 6 works, Ron...I had totally forgotten. It certainly isn't a processional, huh? Man, Ricky D's having a great ISDE.
Just checked the official site - must be 3 PM over there (or so), but no moto results are posted yet. The tension! How cool is it going to be to check the internet today!?!
Either way, this team has done great this year. You can argue that this year's conditions were going to favor our western riders, AND that we may have missed our BIG chance to rock the ISDE world. But I think that - with the strength of GNCC, OMA, WORCS, and other series, we are building a great "bench" and that we can make adjustments if we needed to for more "eastern" conditions in the future.
Having said that, I still have always underestimated the value of the "speed" or motocross special tests. Evert's one-time appearance AND OVERALL really brought this home. Yes, in an exaggerated kinda way -and I probably not giving the guy enough credit all-around...
UPDATE - some results are posted - E2, E3, Women, Clubs, but no E1 (Dietrich) and no overalls. Man - Italians (don't know if they are Trophy or Junior) took 4 of the 5 top spots in E2. It's just not right! ;)
Abbott (9th), Jarrett (13th), and Woods (29th)..all Gold in E2; Nate Kenney (8th!!) Gold in E3. The US women did well, but not sure if it added up to overall or not....
Oh - and how this news: Juha Salminen must have had a bad, bad day...he dropped to 14th in E2. I'm having trouble understanding total times. Would have thought this would promote Balometti (the Italian) to Overall, but some E3 totals look better...
Things that make you go hmmm...
I dont know what happened but if you look at Juha's time, its 9 minutes slower than the winner of E2, and the are s bunch of other riders at the bottom of the chart that seem to have been given the same times. Maybe some kind of a penalty?
Brian
'73 Berkshire
Team d-Con
//www.d-conproducts.com America's #1 Rodent Control Brand
E1 is in...Ricky D finished 2nd in the moto (2.76 seconds behind Cervantes of Spain) and 2nd overall in E1. Closest Finn was almost 40 seconds back in his moto. Our E2 boys (Jimmy, Nate W, and Destry) took 6th, 8th, and 9th in their moto. Tarkkala (the Finn) won the E3 moto, but I really do not see any other Finnish riders doing that well in the moto's....
So ladies and gentlemen, let me unofficially predict that the Yanks have a 3rd overall in World Trophy. Well Done!!
BTW - Fredette silvered in C2 and Hoess took Gold (6th in C1).
Still not sure about the Overall individual/total times...it LOOKS like Ricky D has the 2nd best overall total, but I'm just a nuclear engineer...[:p]
http://www.isde2008-live.gr/
It's unofficial, but it's true...World Trophy - France, Italy, and then...the USA! By like 8 minutes total over the Spaniards, who just inched out Finland. The Italians were 8 minutes up on us.
And Ricky Dietrich won 2nd Overall. Holy Freaking Cow. Lost overall by 42 seconds to Cervantes, the Spaniard. Nate Kanney 20th overall, Abbott 22nd, Jarrett 29th.
BTW - not a great ISDE for the Junior Team - 12th out of 16 teams, but they'll get better. They've got SOME GREAT MENTORS!!!
I attended the GNCC event at Unadilla this last weekend and got to meet/shake hands with Kurt Caselli, Jimmy Jarrett, and Nathan Kanney from the 2008 Trophy Team. Huge. And I say that because I have so much respect for Six Day competitors - past and present. Nate was kind of the big draw at the KTM tent (over David Knight and Kurt!) because NY is his home state, but that's fine - that just means I got to talk to Kurt for about 10 minutes! What a great guy...of course I was a little concerned about what to say.."nice job knocking yourself unconscious on Day 3, dude...". I just told him what a huge job he had done leading the team to, and thru, the Six Day in Greece -on and off the bike. Naturally, he wanted to give a lot of credit to his dad. But he's already excited about next year in Portugal, which should present conditions very similar to Greece - dry and dusty, which probably plays to our current strengths when it comes to the Yanks.
Having said that, it had just started to seriously rain about 15 minutes before the start of the Unadilla event. I asked Kurt if this east coast mudder was a warm-up for his 2009 GNCC series commitment which drew a laugh, but he probably laughed even harder when I asked him if there was any pressure in following in the footsteps of David Knight and Juha Salminen in this series..
Well..he's laughing for now at least. BTW - Knight just killed everyone in this event. By MINUTES....and given the conditions, Caselli didn't do too bad with his seventh, but he was at least 15 or 20 minutes down on Knight. What a wonder to watch these top guys in the woods..they just danced thru this stuff. Just like I remember when I first watched Jack, Jeff, and Dane (and Paul...and Dwight...) back in the early 70's.
I am not worthy!:)
Yup, it is always sobering to see how fast the best are when they are at the top of their game. You start to think, "man I'm getting fast" then you watch a race like that and you realize just how much faster they are than regular folks.
Brian
'73 Berkshire Team d-Con
//www.d-conproducts.com America's #1 Rodent Control Brand
tooclose racing,
I was at Unadilla too. We were in the motorhome parked directly behind the KTM semi. Nate was wanting to win that race really, really bad. He said, "When I leave this place on Sunday afternoon, they're going to start calling this place Natadilla". Unfortunatly, it didn't go his way.
I was there helping a young and up coming rider named Cory Buttrick. It was only his second race in XC2 Pro Lites class where he finished 2nd, and he finished an amazing 6th Overall. Not too bad for a 17 year old. Cory is also a Penton fan, and has raced Kent Knudson's Pentons at Mid Ohio for the past 2 years and has done quit well.
Cory's lifelong dream has been to ride Six Days, but he's just been waiting to get some more experience in the saddle. I know he talked to Kurt several times during the week about what it takes to be competitive at the ISDE. I heard Kurt saying that Cory has, "A lot of potential". It's good to see that there is still some interest in the Six Days from younger riders.
While at Unadilla, I bought this tank from a guy in the pit area.
(http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/5385/1005467qk4.jpg)
Cool story..and I did follow the YOUNG GUN Cory a bit during the race - what a fantastic result under those conditions!
NICE tank, I'm totally jealous. That's a 1.8 gal MX tank,right? Was it used on the mid/late seventies MC-5s also?
Yes, it's the 1.8 gallon tank. I believe that this tank was last used in '75. The MC5 looked the same, but had some minor differences. The front had a couple of bulges in it to clear the steering stops, and the back was a little longer and used a rubber mount and hose clamp to hold the tank onto the frame.
Quotequote:Originally posted by Gary Roach
I was there helping a young and up coming rider named Cory Buttrick. It was only his second race in XC2 Pro Lites class where he finished 2nd, and he finished an amazing 6th Overall. Not too bad for a 17 year old. Cory is also a Penton fan, and has raced Kent Knudson's Pentons at Mid Ohio for the past 2 years and has done quit well.
Thanks to Kent. It's always great to see today's young guns go old school, and "tickle a Penton". :D
Bawb
It's my pleasure Bob! Cory and his family are good friends and die hard KTM people so we all have a lot of fun together. Cory has now finished 7th, 6th, and 9th overall at the last three GNCC's...which is truly amazing considering he is just 17. He's also raced our Pentons the last 2 years at Mid-Ohio and won all 8 motos he's ridden. With his skill and enthusiasm I'm just happy to contribute what I can!
Kent