Factory Racer For A Day

Some kids dream of exploring space as an astronaut or dousing fires as a fireman, while others desire to fight crime as a police officer. But not me, I had other things infiltrating my thoughts in my younger days. Maybe I was a bit self-serving, but my youthful aspirations were more along the lines of becoming a factory (then ATC) racer like Honda's Marty Hart or Kawasaki's Jimmy White. But as we all know, factory race support pretty much vanished from the race scene in the late 1980s due to overwhelming lawsuits on three-wheelers. As ridiculous as this may seem, my hopes for evolving into the world's fastest factory racer were pretty much dashed in an instant. Who was I kidding anyway? I was never good enough for factory-level racing.

Once again, I know this may seem a bit selfish, but when the factories returned to ATV racing nearly a decade later, I was extremely proud yet jealous that I wasn't one of the few special chosen racers to be on one of these factory teams. Fast-forward to October 11, 2008, and my dream actually became a reality-well, for a day that is. One day as a factory racer is better than never getting this experience at all, right? I didn't get accepted on just any ol' team either, but rather the hot new KTM cross-country racing team that was put on the map in 2008 by the likes of pro GNCC racers Adam McGill and Taylor Kiser and led by one of the most epic ATV racers of all time, Tim Farr.

So let's click it in reverse and back up to October 10 at 10:00 p.m. One of ATVR's great freelance editors, Jorge Cuartas, and I just wrapped up an exhausting day of shooting in North Carolina. Our dilemma: We had to be in St. Clairsville, Ohio, sitting on the starting line for round 12 of the Grand National Cross Country series for my new position as factory KTM racer in exactly 12 hours. In those 12 hours, we'd have to knock out 500 miles of travel, grab a bit of sleep (which we really didn't), get signed up at the GNCC, meet up with KTM, get geared up and race for two hours in the rugged Ohio woods. I guess that's just another day at the office for us.

OK, fast-forward through the next 10.5 hours of drama, and Jorge and I are now frantically forcing our way into the front gate of the racetrack literally beat from sleep deprivation and our long journey north. Objective one: Track down John Malley, representative and ATV technician for KTM. As soon as we located John, I was totally relieved to see that he had everything under control, prepped and waiting on me. At this point, stressed and a bit delirious, I had only an hour to sign-up, gear up and get my butt to the starting line.

I think it's important to point out just how vital to this experience John Malley was. He had set up the suspension for my weight and riding style, installed a set of Fasst Company Flexx bars, mounted up a set of HiPer carbon-fiber wheels, installed a factory KTM front bumper and nerf bars all before we ever arrived. And to top it off, all this work had been completed on a brand-new 2009 450 XC. Just so you know, the 2009 model received a significant amount of well-received updates from the previous year's model (see sidebar). I've been riding the 2008 450 XC all year, but this would be my first experience aboard the revamped 2009 model.

Even though I was a bit late getting to the starting line and grabbing my position, I was finally here and ready to roll. Thankfully, the race got off to a late start, so I actually had a few minutes to calm my nerves while John continued to go over the quad, tightening and rechecking every little nook and cranny. In fact, John didn't stop looking over this quad until I was literally around the first turn. It was kind of funny, as I pulled off, I could have sworn he was chasing me down the track still checking it over. OK, so that was just my wild imagination. But John was truly dedicated as my mechanic for the day; he never took his attention off of the quad, except for wishing me a bit of good luck.