2011 ABA BMX Grands - recap
Wow! What a weekend! Dani won her first Silver Cup taking the ABA National #1 Girl Title, Jeremy won his Pro Debut taking the win at the Race Of Champions, Kenth came out and got on the Box in Vet Pro before handing over his 3 time ABA #1 Pro Plate, Bubba was flying and in the AA pro Mains even won a moto or two, Zach took the ROC #1 Plate and we won the ABA BMX/ Pull BMX Magazine Golden Crank Award for Bike of the Year! Yeah it was a great weekend for Supercross.
So where do we start. Well lets start with the trip to the ABA Grands! Shannon came by on Sunday to pick up the trailer, and made the drive back to Arizona to pick up Speedline/Supercross Factory Rider, Lil' Kim Hayashi to make the 24 hour drive to the Grands!
On Tuesday, upon getting to the Quik Trip Arena, he got to drive on in and drop the trailer on Pit Row and then Shannon and Kim ran to go get some much needed food and sleep. It was going to be a big weekend.
Once the pits were up, then it got time for the fun of the weekend. Shannon was going to be going a bit crazy as we had done up some custom ENVY's for everyone for the weekend. Dani got hers the night before since she was flying out, but Bubba, Kenth and Jeremy all needed to get thiers put together on Wednesday for practice on Friday. These bikes were new 2012 ENVY's that had been modified for a special custom fork and a custom hubset. And we did them up in custom paint for everyone to really make them stand out for the weekend. Bubba was extra stoked on his Green/Yellow beast and loved the new Quick Twitch Hubs and SLT 20mm fork.
Bubba flat out called it the best bike ever, but we will get onto more of that later. This update is about the Grands! So practice went well and everyone was ready for the weekend. Practice always runs late at the grands, but everyone was trying to get the feel for the LOOOOOOOOOOONG track and make sure that they were ready.
On Friday racing started off great with Bubba, Dani, Jeremy ,Kenth ,Nate and Zach all winning first round motos, so that gave everyone a good feeling of what was going to come for the day. Jeremy was extra fired up with this being his Pro Debut, and he was running that track like no one else finding lines and transfers all over, not to mention doing a few Tuck No Handers in Pro Warm Up. You could tell he was feeling good and ready.
In the Semi's Bub was sitting in a comfortable 4th spot in the last turn and Barry Nobles came up and gave him a little bump, and Bub's front wheel hit Donny Robinson's Back wheel who was sitting in third and it kept him out of the Main for Friday's Race of Champions, but he was hungry after that and we knew he would be making the main for the Grands and the Pro Spectacular, you could see it in his eyes.
In Friday's Main's Jeremy won his Pro Debut, Dani Followed him up with a Win in Junior Women, and Kenth stepped up on to the Box with a 3rd in Vet Pro. And Nate took a 7th after getting tangled in the first turn and having to roll the Pro set. Great Racing by all of them.
And after the Pro's ran, we had a bit of a wait, but Zach came back and pulled off the win in 14x for the ROC #1. We wanted to stick around to get better photos but we had to run to the Hospital for Lil' Kim who broke her hand earlier in the day, so we got a quick photo of him as we ran out of the stands over the railing.
The next day, was the start of the Grands and the Pro Spectacular Day, Dani qualified out first round, Nate Qualified out first round and Bubba, Kenth, Jeremy and Courtney all started the day off strong.
After the first rounds, the ABA did a cool Pro Poster signing, and Kenth, Jeremy and Bubba all went over and signed a few hundred posters for the Fans.
Since Dani, wasn't racing Pro, she had her own poster signing in the Supercross BMX pits. We ended up running out of all of the Supercross Posters this weekend.
Then that night after second round of Motos, the cleared out the arena and got everything started up for the Pro Spectacular. Jeremy who had been killing it all day crashed in his Quarter so he was missing out on racing the Pro Spectacular, we were just glad he was OK. But in the mix that night we had Dani in the NAG 5 Challenge, Bubba in the AA pro Main, Kenth in Vet Pro and Courtney in the Women Pro, so it was a great showing for the team. And in the middle of all the racing the ABA was announcing the Golden Crank Awards. It was thehe icing on the cake for the night other than everyone riding amazing and representing well was that we were voted ABA BMX / Pull BMX Magazine Golden Crank Bike of the year. To say we were shocked was an understatement, and I would personally like to thank everyone who voted for us. We are humbled and we are working on making sure that we can keep building the best bikes possible. I was so proud to be there with the team to get the award. We couldn't be building the best without them so it was an award that we like to share with them.
After the Golden Crank Awards they finished up the racing, Dani took the win for the Nag 5 Challenge, Bubba and Courtney took 6th's in thier respective AA Pro and Womens Pro classes and Kenth just missed the box with a 4th in Vet Pro. So proud of all of them.
The next morning, was third rounds, Zach Qualified out of 14x, Nate qualified out of his 1/8th and Dani had to sit and wait for her Quarter. As the quarters came up, Dani won hers, Zach made it out and Nate took a 4th, but they had odd numbers so they were only taking 3 which put him out for the rest of the day. In Semi's Dani won her semi, and Zach got crashed int he first turn, so he was out of class for the day but still had open.
Then it came time for the mains. Zach was up first and took a 5th in his open, then it was Dani's turn. She came out strong knowing the title was on the line, battled in the first turn with Shelby Stacy and took the lead and held everyone off to the line. She got her first Silver Cup and the National #1 Am Title!!
So proud of her and the entire team for finsihing up the year so strong. Can't wait for Reno to start off the next season! It is going to be a great one!!
