Crutcher’s Corner | A Week In The Life Of JC
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The last week and a half has been absolute banger status for your man. I’ll recap you with what’s been popping off because I’ve lately been taken aback by how surreal things have seemed for me.
On Monday of last week, I rode with a handful of really fast riders at the re-emerged Grain Valley MX. Benny Bloss’s family has partial ownership in the track, so Ben came up to KC for a couple days of riding at the track he turned his first lap on. GV is the town Benny grew up in and his parent’s home is a few miles from the track, so getting to ride motos with him on the Daytona-inspired course is a real treat to times long passed. Used to a very rigid training regimen, Ben and his mechanic Derek Rankin asked us to participate in his program for the day. I agreed, knowing I probably wouldn’t make it to the checkers in either of the duration motos. The day’s program demanded one 15-minute warmup and track break-in, four two-lap sprints with two minute helmet-on recovery periods between each sprint, a short break, then two 35-minute motos to finish out the afternoon. Sitting in an extremely tree-shrouded location, the track is nestled between Monkey Mountain recreation area to the south and the Sni-A-Bar Creek to the north, a stagnant combination that rivals any humidity rich location such as Loretta’s.
While doing the program all of us were dying a slow death on the bike and even between sessions in the pit, I was thinking about how gnarly individuals like Ben are to be able to perform at such an elite level. Our group was no slouch contingent either. Between Ben, Kevin Moranz, Dawson Kaub, Scott Gebken, Tallon Shiflett, Hunter Clements, and myself, you’re looking at about 20 Missouri State Championship plates and 2000 moto wins betwixt us. Still, only Benny and Kevin were able to finish out the national motos. It took 23-minutes in Moto One for them to circle back and get past me, and that’s a feather in my cap of which I’m still flying. I think this is where I say #trusttheprocess.
The next two days were to the stop in the tube of doing custom decals, launching a new service of custom logo design, coordinating with Fox for new gear arrival (of which you’ll see in the near future), packing up all my stuff, and rebuilding the 250 SX (only to find out the 2016 crank fits perfectly in the engine cases but has a half-moon key location a few degrees off the 2018 crank’s position, which means the ignition timing is off) and leaving for a five-day trip with our online editor, Anton. We had a business meeting in Charleston, SC, a day of filming and photography for SC’s newest moto location at Oak & Harrow (who has their opening weekend the 25th of this month), and a plan to race Muddy Creek on Sunday.
A day of photo shooting for PJ1 and Fox at Oak & Harrow was a lot of fun. I’ve twice been the featured talent, once for Dealer News magazine that circulates to the industry companies and dealers across the nation and once for The Pickle magazine in a cover story expose. However, both of the shoots were performed 16 and 15 years ago, so I had since forgotten what a day of shooting involved. Anton makes for a great creative director at the track and we came up with some fantastic unique content for all three brands involved in the shoot.
As states continue to cycle through the “Stay-At-Home” to “Open For Business” game of roulette, one must keep a very fluid agenda. The Rona struck in Tennessee, where Muddy Creek is located, as one of the local bike shops that heavily supports the Victory Sports race series had an employee and customer outbreak of positive testing cases. In the best interest of everyone, Victory decided to kill the event. That left us with two options for riding on Sunday: drive two hours north to Club MX with a 12-hour drive back to Anton’s house in Main Street, Illinois, or 3.5 hours west to Monster Mountain with an eight-hour return trip. Given that both facilities are equally famed, we landed on the idea of riding the Monster based on the shorter trip home.
Oftentimes, the conversation of “Where else could Nationals be held?” is started and one of the first tracks brought up is usually Monster Mountain. I’ve never been, nor had Anton, and we were foaming at the mouth to ride a facility akin to the Continuumtransfunctioner, of which only its mystery is exceeded by its power (to us first-timers). I can see why the track is in the forefront of that topic, after spinning over an hour of laps only to be cut off short by a Red Sea parting thunderstorm.
Next up this weekend is a doubleheader event at Midwest Extreme Park in Merwin for rounds of the Missouri State Series. If you’re within eight hours of the Kansas City area, or hell anywhere in the nation, pack it up and bring yourself down to a uniquely European style outdoor track due south of the KC metro area. Top talent from across the country come to Mo State for competitive racing many times, as the legend of flyover country motocross lives on like that of time tested strength of Valyrian Steel. See you this weekend!
