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Very nice Ken!!

Great story....sounds like a heck of a race.
Glad to hear the machine (and yourself) made 5 laps. That makes me feel good about it all..
Tough break for the rest of the team...but that's racing I guess..

The GNCC race is  actually the following weekend (21st)....I had my dates messed up....

I have so much going on I can't get my dates straight but I do race on the 29th myself..
Thanks Turnbuckle..

I have not seen any issues with our MXU300.
Nothing leaks anywhere....it has been a good strong quad.

Keep us informed on what all happens to yours...

Great job Kymco racers ! ! 

4x4 Lites - Class Results
Place Nbr Name Hometown Brand Laps Elapsed
1 206 CLIFTON A BEASLEY CHAPEL HILL, TN CAN 6 02:18:19
2 602 JORDAN PHILLIPS GREEN MOUNTAIN, NC KYM 5 02:16:20
3 5004 KEVIN M JOHNSTON MAIDEN, NC KYM 5 02:27:52
4 310 CALEB G JONES MARTINSVILLE, IN CAN 5 02:30:09
5 5000 JERIME K DUDDING DANIELS, WV CAN 4 01:38:07
6 363 DAN G MCCONNAUGHEY HOLLY, MI KYM 4 02:25:19
7 917 KEVIN PERKINS THOMPSONVILLE, IL POL 2 01:01:38
8 258 KEN C ROBEY MARTINS FERRY, OH KYM 1 00:41:52

Yeah...it is 10 miles for 1 lap. They ran 3 laps. The sport quads went 4.

Ask the GNCC racers on here ...they will tell you about some of the tough tracks they race...


Ok....I got some video.

The first one is the start.......don't laugh....I didn't start really giving it the throttle good to I was almost at the first turn...I was so nervous I messed up the start by accidently cranking too early, then I shut off and back on and the flag was raised....it was all a blur :yellow-biggrin:

Here is the start :

video: rough start - Hey...it is my first time..

I like this one. It is a stretch somewhere...I think around the 6 mile mark....I like this shot...looks like I was really riding :yellow-surprised: ..:

video: Me somewhere on a back sretch trying to keep up...

This is somewhere towards the end.. I was tired but still going... :yellow-redface:

video: still going...

Next time you see me, my 500 will be blue . I just haven't had time to switch over the plastic yet. Luckily I didn't damage my red plastic this time.

My first race story - Not a race victory, but a first time personal goal accomplisment.
 
 
The weekend started out rough. I fought a sinus cold Friday and Sat. on Antibiotics and decongestants. I was weak going to the track..and to top it off had flat on the SUV pulling 3 four wheelers, when we got there.
 
For the race....at this point my goal was to make it at least 1 lap in one piece.
 
I ran the Utility ATV class...I lined up with 3 Can-Am Renegade 800's to my right and  2 Hondas and a Yamaha(i think) to my left. The 800 next to me had a pipe and he sounded like a race car at the drag races..(I am on a Kymco MXU500)
The course was a punishing 10 miles. It was far more demanding than any of the normal trails down there. Every type of terrain was in that course...did I say brutal? It was!

At the start...I was psyched...I had my mind set for a good start. I wanted as close as possible to the 3 Can-ams on my right and make sure I beat the three others on my left.
10 second countdown and my nerves got the best of me...I accidently pressed the start button.....panic....I hit the kill switch..missed it...finally hit it...switched it back on and broke my ryhthm timing cause the flag  raised..and I wasn't as quick as I would have been....
 
Well it wasn't too bad the Can-ams pulled in front I was beating the two hondas on my left , but the third one on the end I didn't see until the first hard left and he inched in front of me. I pushed him all the way into the woods..i had to ride the breaks to stay off him.
I stayed on him for 6 miles. I was actually racing guys!! Yeeeee haaaa!.
Well I got really exhausted and I slowed up a tad...but kept him in check....I was hoping for a feild or straight away so that I could really romp down on it and use some of my Kymco power to get around him. It never came...it was tight twisting turns the whole way. There were no good spots to pass…..I was really parched and had to let off to grab my camelpak mouthpiece in to suck down some cold water...what would I have done without it!
I started gaining back on him again but at around mile 7 we hit a massive rock crawl...I never knew there were rocks like that down there....I was'nt prepared and had to tip-toe threw that area..it went off camber up a hill and back over to a creek (mud hole) that intimidated the heck out of me so i slowed a lot there..by 8 miles I was hurting...arm pump was killing me...legs getting tired...
Finally mile 9 and people were all lined up a long a section and that gave me energy. I was almost to the end.
 
After I finally passed through the checkpoint and they registered my time, I was goiing to come on out and be done...I made my one lap. I gunned it out and saw my dealer (the guy who talked me into racing) standing going “go – go, yeah” you know with the arms waving like “your doing great , go get’em’….well after seeing that I got a second wind and gunned on for lap 2. I was only 17 seconds behind the guy in front of me.
 
Well was barely hanging on trying to drive hard and fast but not overdoing it…I had almost completely drained my camelpak of water and I was drained., at around the 5 mile mark (of lap 2)  there is this real narrow rough section I come bouncing through there and my left front tire hit a tree and it stopped me cold at about 18 mph. Took me a second to get back up and going. I got back on the trail but it felt like my front was pulling and I was really exhausted, my arms could keep manhandling the front anymore and at the 6 mile marker (around there) I saw through the woods a way to get off the trail and go back to the finish.  I decided, I was too wore out to go in any further and I also kept fearing I had damaged something in my front end so I called it a day.
 
Although not a victory story, I ran about 1 - 3/4 laps. I probably could have just pulled over and rested a minute or two and could have made the last 4 miles of lap 2 but I was too fatigued and the fear I had broke something on the front loomed over me.
 
 
I learned that I can ride all day like we do when we go down for a weekend (6-7 hours straight) , but racing is whole different animal. The course is tough the whole 10+ miles…no resting or taking it easy. It definitely is a endurance race. My hats off to these guys racing….especially the ones racing the MXU500 like mine..it is a handful.
 
I do think I will be much better the next time...I think I can hang with (lap times ) and beat the other similar quads with a little more practice. I probably raced to hard the first lap (because I knew I was better than those three other guys) and got too fatigued. I was the oldest guy at 46 in that class against a bunch of younger , but experienced guys.....I got to get my legs into better shape for sure.
 
See ya.
 

One thing that was cool is that I went to gnccraing.com and was able to watch the live timing from the race.
I saw Jordan and Ken pull in lap one ....then I saw Jordan hit lap two but Ken had not.....I kept watching (ok....I really went and made a sandwich and came back) then I see Jordan at lap 3 ...still second behind Beasley.  Ken still had not advanced so I knew something had happened (along wih Dan and Kevin).
I had also been keeping tabs on the schoolboy class to see how Kens boy was doing. I saw Doug up around 9th and was thinking 'alright that Powroll kit must be making a difference"....but later saw that he was dropping back and not advancing.....I knew something was wrong....Th e picture show it...

Well....I later talked to Ken that night and he gave me the scoop....but it was really cool to see it unfold just watching the live timing on gnccracing.com.

 

Great job 400racer!
Nice start off the line.