ECHO BLOG, Echo Blog, echo blog...

I spent both days last weekend down at The Rideout families Echo Valley MX near Poole, KY. Echo Valley has been around just about as long as we've been in motocross which is going on ten years now, and over the years they have hosted several Loretta Lynn's area qualifiers. 2009 was the first year they haven't held races and they also lost their qualifier. In big time amateur racing, moto politics play into certain decisions, and unfortunately Echo was left holding the bag this year.

I hate the fact they haven't raced this year, but it has also brought the track to life as a damn good practice facility now. Somewhere along the lines, Echo Valley have dropped having quads practice and it has created a wonderful scenario for the bike enthusiast. The soil, when groomed like it normally is, ruts up very nicely and stays super rough the entire day. Very little prep has to be done during practice days, which in turn means less maintenance, fuel costs, and machine repairs.

Granted, it sucks for the quad guys, but you you can hardly blame a guy for a smart business decision.

Of course, this is just an opinion, and I'm not attempting to start the ol' quad vs. bike debate that has become so popular every other month at the forums. Just, that as a bike family it's great for us.

Anyway Saturday was especially nice and I hadn't realized the amount of rain they received in the Henderson area. I expected another good turn out and was met with just one other rider.

Jacob Durbin came down an introduced himself and spent quite a bit of time talking with us that day. He said he'd only been into motocross about three years, but rides quite well, especially for being so tall. I had to tell Kody who Mike "Too Tall" Bell was, so it was a moto history lesson as well that day!

Just the two of them riding gave me a chance to monkey around with taking shots in manual mode. I mean monkey, too. lot's of trial and error, but eventually I got some of the best pics I've taken in a long time. Granted, I'm no Buckley or Scavo yet, but I'm learning!

The Saturday pics can be seen here.

Sunday had the normal decent crowd and the track was in much better shape. It had dried out and Kenny had disked it up and was developing ruts quite quickly. I took well over 300 pictures on Sunday and most turned out pretty good.
The Sunday pics are located here.

Hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday!

Big Stripper Blog

Nah, Ol' Hamer hasn't gone off the deep end and ventured off to some "gentleman's clubs", The Big Stripper is the LA Dirtriders round of the Mid South Hare Scrambles Series held last weekend in Lynnville Indiana.

I arrived just after Noon on Saturday with intentions of helping out my friends. As it turned out, most everyone had their machines ready to rock, but I did get to help on a grip replacement early Sunday. Most of Saturday was just spent cruising around with Butch Bradley, visiting with friends and having a few "golden yummies"! Also got to hang with my old buddy Brian Belwood, from the old days of motocross. Brian always brings a certain flair to the camp outs!

Sunday's action started early for the little guys. First off were the Junior A and Junior B classes. Brandon Gourley took off like a scalded cat and never looked back. He opened up quite a lead, but backed off some towards the end to conserve fuel.

Junior B started shortly behind the Junior A's and they were off running wild as well. Matthew Bell was among the riders in the Jr. B class, but the pictures I got of Matt were blurry as crap! Honestly, I wasn't expecting to see the Bell's and he came up on me pretty quickly and I almost missed him. Brandon won the Junior A class, Matthew finished 3rd in Junior B.

Next up were the mini classes. Brett Gourley was aboard the KTM 65 and like bigger brother Brandon, was hauling butt in the woods. All three of the Gourley boys do a lot off their training in the woods, and it's no surprise they are as fast in the woods as they are on a motocross track.

Big bikes were next, and it looked like they had several hundred riders ready to tackle the Lynnville trails. Cory Buttrick, #12 and Jordan Ashburn, #927 pretty much ran away from everyone else in the AA Pro classes. Buttrick was the eventual winner, with Ashburn second.

Scott Goodman has some helmet cam footage of an entire lap of the course over on youtube. In the 4th installment, you can actually see the Ashburn and Buttrick passing Scott, who by the way is an excellent woods rider, and checking out in just a few seconds. Pretty amazing footage by Scott.


Former SIMX team motocrossers #561 Broc Sims and KTM mounted Tanner Byarly were running Heavy A and Lites A respectively. Sims always gets a good start, and the Lynnville round was no exception. Unfortunately Sims, encountered a flat early into the race and had to settle for a 10th place finish. Tanner also got an awesome start and rode hard the entire race, finishing 3rd in his class and 9th overall for the entire event.

Both Broc and Tanner are as fast on a motocross track as they are in the woods. It was good to see these guys doing well at the "Big Stripper".

Competing almost side by side in the Lites B class was Broc Gourly, #32 and #57 Zach Greenwell. These guys were charging hard right from the start and were with in eye site of each other, 'til Zach got a flat tire as well, and ended his day about the 2nd lap of the race. Broc, on the other hand continued charging all the way to the class victory and a 22nd overall finish for the event.

Justin Brockman was competing in his second hare scramble ever. He ran in the Iuka round, which I have heard nothing good about, and was looking forward to better conditions and luck in Lynnville. Well. he got the conditions, but unfortunately the "luck" thing just wasn't to be. Justin had gotten stopped at a bottleneck and a rider's bike fell into his damaging a radiator. He managed to make it back to the pits, but the Ol' Kawi conked out on him there!

Other notables... Mark Guy, forum regular won the Super Senior A class, Koltin Ellis finished 22nd in 250C, Oakland City's own, Tyler Richeson finished 24th in 250C. Clay Butts finished 17th in Junior B and Chris Gibson had a 4th place in the Open B class.

More "Big Stripper" pics can be found here

Awesome November

Well at least for moto! My dad busted up his femur the other day and is going to be laid up for a while, but for motocross November has been pretty sweet so far.

Got an email from James Bell yesterday. He and Matthew traveled down to Mill Creek for the Fall Pro/Am event. James said the competition was pretty stiff with 20-25 riders in the 85 Sr. class. Kind of sad, anymore when you go to events here locally and have maybe 5 riders in any of the mini classes. Anyway Matthew finished 6/8 on the day!

Bryce Weger was in action up at Crossroads MX this weekend as well. Bryce finished 3rd overall Saturday in 85 Jr. and 4th overall on Sunday in the same class.

Ben "B-Money" Butler was also up at crossroads terrorizing the 50 classes. Ben finished 1st in 50 Open and 1st in 50 Sr. Ben is also the Track Champion in both the 50 Open and 50 Sr. classes and is also the 2009 Stateline Series Class Champion in the 50 Sr. class. Way to go Ben!
My man Jack Campbell participated down at Steve Ezell's 800 MX National Vet Race. Now Ol' Jack's far from a vet rider, but he did take home top honors in the Unlimited Class and also had a 3rd in the 15-24 Open class. No, Jack's not back on Yamaha's either! It's the quickest pic of #263 I could find!

Justin Brockman reported in with a win over at D-Tracks Winter National. Justin had scores of 1/1/3/1 in the 2-day, four moto event for the overall.

I also spent some time down at backwoods Saturday. The weather was awesome and there very several riders ripping it up. Dylan Cox was putting in several heated laps. Kody Hamer, Nick Waller, Jordan Penner and T-Unit were out trying to shake off the cob webs from a pretty slack summer schedule. Trent has been injured, Kody was footballing while Jordan and Nick enjoyed the life of a "working" man all summer. Good to see all those guys back out riding!

Hope the weather stays on our side for a little while longer!

More Backwoods pics can be found at moto-x-foto.com, or www.robin1grafix.com/nov2009_bw!

Fall Blog!

Well summer has passed us by and I swear I think Ol' Man Winter is right around the corner of my house! I used to never be cold, sucks to get old!!

Racing is starting to wind down, at least the type I like...outdoors! This weekend is a big weekend up at Crossroads MX. Saturday they have a scheduled Stateline Summer Series race going on, followed by a D17 points race on Sunday. I just watched the weather and it looks like rain Tuesday, the some more Thursday and Friday, so hopefully Ray & Nadine can get in their rider appreciation festivities as well.

Another cool thing going on is the FCA Invitational Day of Riding at Echo Valley MX in Poole, KY.

This is being held from 10 am to 4 pm, with an hour break for lunch, devotional and questions & answers with some of the FCA Motocross team. I believe this is $15 for the whole day and will benefit a very good group!

Also saw this awesome news on Justin Weeks' website over the weekend...

Updates on Justin Weeks

UPDATE 10/25/09
I have very exciting news to share with everyone about Justin’s progress. It has been well anticipated over the weekend as word leaked out about his newest success, but before I describe exactly what happened I’d like to put something in perspective.

At this very moment 88,796 people have visited Justin’s website since the accident. That is an astonishing number and it continues to grow with every update. We have received donations from $5.00 to $2,000 from people and its amazing how much everyone has donated. I’d like to throw this idea out there hoping it might catch on. If everyone was to donate 1.00 every time they visited the site, we would have 88,795 dollars to give to the Weeks family. I'm sad to say that our numbers don’t come close. I would like to post the number of how much money we have raised but for the privacy of the Weeks family I would like to keep it private. I would just like to throw that perspective out there and see what happens.

This Thursday around 10:30 I was sitting in my class at school when I got a video message from Justin on my cell phone and it was a video of him moving his toes up and down. At first I was in disbelief, and thought it was a muscle spasm so I texted back asking “Are you doing that? Is that you controlling your foot?” a couple of seconds went by and then I got the text saying “ YESSSSSSSSSS Yes I did, OMG I can move my foot Maria!”

Justin was able to move his toes on the Left side up and down and he was able to have control over them. He was able to move them up when his dad told him to move them up, and down when he was told to move them down. Justin described the FEELING part of the toes as a “strong tingling sensation” so he cannot actually feel just yet, but he is able to control his toes and move them back and forth.
Then after his morning stretches (and his exciting toe movement) his family had an appointment with SCI Step an out-patient rehabilitation program for individuals with spinal cord injuries. Justin checked the place out and was talking to one of the therapists and showed off his toe movement. Within their three hour visit of talking and testing out what would be right for Justin, SCI was able to get Justin’s ankle and foot moving. Justin was able to rotate his foot in a small circular motion, and also move his whole foot up and down. Also when Justin is in his chair, he can get his whole leg swinging by practicing his foot movement. This is all on the left side, and nothing had come about his right side, all taking place on Thursday (10/22)

I arrived at Justin’s house late Thursday night and was shocked at his movement. We got ready for bed and woke up Friday morning to take his medication and to start the stretches at 9:00 sharp. Justin was able to move his foot still and his dad continued to do the same stretches he did the day before. I helped out by holding one leg, while his dad held the other and we moved Justin’s legs in a running motion to switch it up a little bit. Then his dad continued to stretch him ...This is difficult to explain without having a visual example, but I will explain to the best I can. Justin was laying flat on his back with his legs straight in front of him. His dad bent his legs, so his knees were bent and right in front of him (his feet close to his butt) then spread his legs to stretch out the groin area. The weight alone would stretch the muscle. With a knee at both of his sides, waiting a while to stretch them out his dad asked Justin to bring his knees together. (At this point they are spread apart remember) With some struggle and gripping the sides of the bed, Justin gave everything he could and ... He was able to bring his knees together in front of him. A very strong left side, and a weaker right side, but in all they came together.

Now, hopefully that was not confusing to you, to clear it up he cannot bend his knees, in this stretch they are already bent because of the position he is in. Then his legs and knees are spread apart, and he was able to bring them to a close in front of him.

Justin was only able to do this a few times before he got tired quickly, then we worked on some abdominal stretches and left it at that for him to relax. He spent the whole day out of the house, and drove around town seeing some close friends and also making a visit to MotoXtremes. That night he had his first steak since the accident, and almost fell asleep at dinner because he was so exhausted from the day. He has not been this active in over a month.

Saturday morning’s stretches came and he was able to move his left foot again, and also bring his knees to a close in front of him, but this time his right site was in sync with his left and was almost equally strong. Again on Saturday he spent the entire day out of the house, and it wore him quickly. Saturday night I was taking care of his feet and I was rubbing the right foot (the one he has not been able to move) I was just toying around with his big toe, flicking it back and forth and asking him to move it if he could, or if he had any sensation. He kept saying no, and then all of a sudden a very very, very small flick of the RIGHT big toe moved. It moved almost four times after that then that was all he was able to do.

Sunday morning he was not able to move it so I am not sure what to make of that. These improvements are ... incredible I'm speechless. It’s hard not to get ahead of myself I hope there will be more to come, everyone’s prayers and thoughts must be getting heard because Justin is almost (this Tuesday) two months since the accident and this type of recovery doesn’t happen very often.

Justin’s family has not had time to really sit down and talk about what or how much Justin will need, and is not asking for anything. Lindsey and I took it upon ourselves to raise money for Justin and his family. With this type of recovery so soon, I hope more can come but it is going to take lots of physical therapy that is going to cost a lot. It is not my position to talk about what kind of insurance the family has or what it covers all I can say or do is tell you all that Justin needs our help. The therapy is what is going to get him to walk again, and I'm just hoping and praying that things will start to come together like it did this weekend.

Justin goes into surgery Monday to remove a blood clot protector out of his body (I'm not sure what it is called) but it will take most of the day and he will be under again, hopefully not setting back his new discovery and improvements.
Justin’s ability to get around the house is somewhat limited but a machine was installed allowing him to go up the stairs and down the stairs and his transfers from the machine improve with every ride up and down. Also Justin was able to transfer from a Honda CRV to a wheelchair almost flawlessly, his arms are getting bigger each time I see him. Im not sure what to make of Justin’s new discovery and accomplishment, of course it is amazing and hard not to jump up and down, and cry with happiness but I hope more can come, and I strongly believe this would not have happen without Justin’s strong determination and all the support you have given him. The family is beside themselves, and I wish I could come up to everyone and thank them personally for all the hard work they have been doing for Justin.

We hope to have something at Mini O’s that will raise money for Justin, it will be the first national since the accident and Justin might make an appearance and go down for a couple of days considering what his therapy schedule is like and if he is able to. Thank you all for everything and being patient over the weekend to hear the news. I just really hope we can get Justin into a good therapy place where he can regain more movement and hopefully walk again. I know it will take time, but with everyone’s prayers its amazing what things can happen.

Thank you all so much for being there every step of the way, and I hope you continue to do so, I hope you all have a safe week and fun Halloween weekend.

Sounds promising!

I've been praying for Justin for several weeks, and this is probably a surprise to most of ya! I've never been a "religious" type person and was probably the biggest religion skeptic around. Recently, while my Mom was sick and dying of cancer, she asked me to start going to Church and I told her I would. I figured I'd go once and that'd be the end of it. Well I have missed 2 times since Sept. 1 and it hasn't killed me yet, or the Church hasn't fallen down either. Tanya Clark told me, "you might even like it" and I guess, I have!

Even "Mr. Doubting Thomas" here, wonders if, maybe, just my little mentions of Justin have helped the young man along.

Back in the blog of things!

Where to start?

I'll be honest with ya, the last three months have been pretty hard on this old boy. On July 9th my Mom was diagnosed with breast cancer for the third time in the last 10 years. On September 1st she passed away, surrounded by family and friends in a hospital bed in Evansville.

Motocross is one of the true loves of my life. I started riding mini bikes when I was about 8 or 9 years old and progressed all the way into racing motocross until the early 80's. The whole entire time, I was never told by Dad or Mom, no. "It's dangerous, you'll get hurt" were never words spoken around our house. It was usually, "don't kill your self" and "be careful", but have fun!

Dad worked for the Southern Railroad and was gone a lot of the times, but Mom was always there for us. If she knew half of the stuff we did as kids in the stripper pits riding and climbing hills, that would have probably been worse than any of her bouts with cancer! Cliff diving in our spare time and then I have to wonder where Kody gets some of his ideas like this!

I always kidded my Mom about her transformation from Mom to a Grand Ma. I never was told no, but Kody on the other hand was a different story. I wonder if the dangers are different or separate from kids to grand kids...

Cancer is a devastatingly awful disease. Most people only get one shot at it, Mom was two and one against cancer. Two and one equals a pretty determined woman to me! Support breast cancer awareness!

Anyway, things are getting kind of, sort of back to normal and we even got to go Grand Prix down at the LA Dirtrider's Eby Motoplex. Good bunch of guys who have done a lot of work out there in the Warrick County reclaimed ground. I spoke with a couple members who expressed interest trying to run an event much like next weeks Paoli, IN Mammoth east event. All natural terrain, grass course with long lap times. May never happen, but it certainly is something for the guys to think about.

Here is a link to some pics from last Sunday's LA Dirtriders event. Also spent a lot of time around the campfire Saturday night sharing drinks, food and stories with some old and new friends.

I hope to get up to Paoli, at least for the Saturday night festivities and some old school moto on Sunday. Stop by and say hi!!!!

Loretta's 2009!

Well Loretta's has came and passed for another year. Team SIMX and moto-x-foto.com was well represented with some pretty good results for the week.

Best overall finish for the week goes to Whitesville, KY speed demon, Dylan Cox. Dylan ran two classes this year, Schoolboy 1 and Schoolboy 2.

Overall in Schoolboy 1 for Dylan was 7th overall in the Nation! Yep, Nation folks. That's quite an accomplishment for the young man from Kentucky. Dyan followed that up with a 9th overall in the Schoolboy 2 class.

Dylan is sponsored by Gateway Cycles, Pro Circuit, MTF, One Vision Motorsports, Fox Racing and Ozz Mods.


Boonville's finest, Brett Gourley finished 10th overall in the 65 7/9 class. Again, this is an amazing accomplishment for our local kids. Many of the top amateurs are from the South and ride and race year round. Team Gourley rides in the frozen spoil banks of Warrick County with studded tires to train in the winter. Tough kids! Congratulations Brett and the rest of Gourley racing!

Brett is sponsored by Team Green Kawasaki, Evansville Superbike, Fly Racing, Scott USA, Pirelli Tires, Renthal, Two2 Cool, moto-x-foto.com, MGX Unlimited, Boonville Lawn and Garden, and most importantly... Mom & Dad!


Unfortunately, Brett's older brother didn't fair as well this year. Brandon reportedly crashed pretty hard in Monday's practice and may have even been ran over. Paramedics felt he was OK to race and that he did! Brandon went out in the first moto of his 65 7/11 Mod. class and laid down a 4th overall. But, he was not feeling well, and decided to tough out another moto in his second class, 65 10/11 Stock. Brandon again was up front, but had another crash, hitting his head again and was unable to finish the race. At that time he pulled out of the competition. I'm sure he was disappointed as was the rest of the bunch. Be looking for Brandon again next year though, cause this kid rips!

Brandon is sponsored by Kawasaki Team Green, Evansville Superbike, Fly Racing, Pro Circuit, Scott USA, Pirelli tires, Rinken Mods, Renthal, Two 2 Cool, SIMX, moto-x-foto.com, MGX Unlimited, One Vision Motorsports, Acerbis, Boyesen, EVS, Hot Cams, RB Components, Ready Filter, RK Racing Chains, and Boonville Lawn & Garden and Mom and Dad!


Newcomer to Loretta's was Team SIMX rider Derek Boyd. Derek is now a Honored alumni of Loretta Lynn's. Derek's week began about the 3rd moto of this years competition and I'm sure the nerves and butterflies had to be painful!

Derek finished 33rd overall in the 250C Mod. class. That's still quite an accomplishment when you figure in you're one of the 40 best in your class in the United States! Derek also ran in the 450C Open class and finished 37th.

Derek is sponsored by Thanks Pro-Action IL Matt Borgic, Next Level MX, SIMX, DeCa Works
Travco Motorsports, Ideal Machine, Sixsixone, TAG, MSR, Sunline, Steel MX, Twin Air, Bliss Clothing, Team SIMX and Mom and Dad!


I'd also like to apologize for not getting down to the ranch this year. I think this only the 2nd year I've missed in the last 11 years. Unfortunately, between my kidney stone early in the year, my Dad's illness' and now my Mom's being in and out of the hospital pretty much about every day for the last month, I was out of vacation days!

I'd of loved to been there and even thought for a moment, I was going to "sneek" off Thursday and make it down, but work prevailed!

I would just like to say how proud I am of all these young men. The time, travel, training and expense to do this is astronomical!

It takes not only the determination of the kids, but a determined team of individuals, family and many other loved ones to make this happen.

You guys are the best of 2009! Enjoy it, you've earned every bit of it!!

Crossroads MX Blog

Traveled back up to Crossroads MX over this past weekend for some much needed practice for my rider, a little camping, grilling, frosty beverages and a lot of bench racing!

Track was good Saturday through practice and around 4:00 PM it started to sprinkle. It rained pretty steady for a couple of hours and amounted to just over .3" of rain. Ray had cut the track some and it looked like Sunday's racing was going to be top notch.

Spent a good deal of time Saturday night watching movies and grilling with the T-Unit and Butler racing. Chuck Uphoff stopped by with some cool video's of Davis up at Walnut earlier this year. Ray stopped by for a beverage and we all got to talk about the upcoming changes with their schedules. Beginning at their next race the bikes will be first up on race days instead of the quads.

Yesterday's program kicked off with a grand total of 5 quads! They ran 2 quad motos, mixed classes, but still just 1 gate drop, a 20 minute break then another quad moto. The bikes started around 11:00 or so and there was quite a bit of downtime in between. I'm sure they had to pay the workers, ambulance etc... for those hours and I'd venture to say with just 5 quad entries, they started the day off in the hole financially.

I don't have the answer on bikes first/quads first, run 'em all together, etc... it's a touchy subject as to who likes ruts, flat washed out corners, etc... but I can only wonder how much longer they will support the quads if they only have 4 or 5 showing up to participate.

OK, enough of the "soapbox", let's get to some racing action! Like I mentioned before, the rain the got overnight made the track just about perfect for racing yesterday. The track rutted up nicely and was pretty rough. Not as rough as the qualifier, but still plenty rough.

Ben Butler finished off the day with a 2nd overall in 50 7/8, and took the overall in 50 Open with a 1/1. Ben has just started riding his KTM 65 and looked very good on it in Saturday's practice sessions. He is still figuring out the shifting part of the KTM, but look for him soon in the 65 Jr. class.

Also got to spend a little time with Kevin Johnson and his family. Kynon is coming back off a leg injury from a year ago and is quickly getting back up to speed. He ran his Honda CRF150 in the Open C class and did quite well. He also busted out the Kevin Johnson built Modzilla Pit Bike.

I missed the pit bike action due to changing a tire, but heard Kynon was airing the pit bike big time. Kody later rode the little beast and came back smiling ear to ear and said it was insane! Kevin has done almost all of the fabrication on the bike and has some pretty trick hand made custom parts to utilize a KTM 65 front and rear ends. If you're interested in such a project, you might want to get a hold of Kevin for assistance!

Kody raced in the 250 A class and finished 3rd overall on the day, again, missing gettin' paid by a spot! The first moto he raced the last 4 laps of the race with a flat front tire. That made for a few sqirrelly moments in some of the CRMX ruts, but Ol' Dad got the RM 250 ready to go again in moto 2. Kody did get in a lot of good practice time on Saturday and we even did a little testing of pipes and suspension settings. Kody really like the 2-stroke, but unfortunately, with football going strong now it limits the amount of seat time he is getting. We are still planning on hittting races when we can, and I'm looking forward to the Red Bud Fall Classic, if I can just persuade the coach to work with us a little!

Derek Rankin ran 250 B and finished up with a 4th overall. All of the pics I got of Derek yesterday was blurry. Derek must be getting faster if I'm having a hard time keeping him in focus! Good job Derek.

Old man T-Unit made his first trip to CRMX this weekend. Trent ran +25 and finished 2nd overall after getting an early lead.

T-Unit is pretty much a legend on the fair circuit and around Nebo KY, but just recently spread his fame into Meade County KY doing interviews and such. It's amazing how the media can sniff out the true "stars" of the sport. Ryan Sipes was in attendance and was shunned for the T-Unit, go figure!

Trent is a good sport about everything and we all give him a hard time, but for an "old guy" he still get's around pretty quick.

Lastly, I'd like to wish Davis Uphoff a quick recovery. Davis had a pretty nasty get off yesterday, but Dad, Chuck reported just some bruises and strained muscles. If you haven't seen Davis on the big bikes, it's a treat. Not sure when the last time I saw a kid make the transformation from mini's to the bigger machines so smoothly!