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Nate Kanney, Umbrella Girl, and Thad DuVall congratulate a "Fun GP" participant.
Race day came bright and early as we departed the hotel at 6:30 am and headed for the Sugo track. It was very, very, very cold around 3° Celsius but the skies were clear and the temperatures would surely rise as the day went on. Once we got to the track, we hung out in the announcers tower for about an hour since it was heated, and then we had to go to the rider's meeting. As it turned out, we were the main attraction of the meeting as myself, Krista, Nate Kanney, Thad DuVall, Chad Duvall, and Jerry Bernardo were all asked up onto the podium. Nate, Thad, and myself said a few words of gratitude to the people of JNCC for their hospitality that were translated by a KTM staffer, and then we headed back to the announcers tower to watch the morning "Fun GP" race take off.
Their morning race is called the "Fun GP" (the afternoon race is the "Comp GP") and it really is just about having fun. For the first lap, course marshalls lead the race and no one is allowed to pass, ensuring the entire field makes one lap at a slow pace to learn the course. After the first lap, the marshalls pull of the course and then the racing begins. As far as I could tell there were only three classes, but I'm not really sure how they were broken down.
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Nate Kanney airs it out on the Sugo MX track.
After the race ended, JNCC promoter Masami Hashino asked all of us Americans to come down to the fence line and greet the rider as the exited the track. We were joined by about 50 or so fans and some of the top Japanese riders like Tokeshi Koikeda, and we slapped hands with every single rider that rode off the track. I guess it's a bit cheesy to do this, but it was kind of cool to see the smiles on the Japanese rider's faces when they saw Thad and Nate standing there to give them a high-five after an hour and 40 minutes of racing.
Not too long after the morning race, riders began to make their way to the starting line for the Comp GP afternoon race. The classes were broken down into rows based on ability level. There are no age group classes here, just AA, A, and B classes. There were over 100 riders in the afternoon race which is the normal turnout for the JNCCs this season.
After everyone was lined up, each pro was called by name over the P.A. and rode down the fence line slapping hands with fans before returning to the starting line. This took quite a while as there were over twenty pros, but they each got their fare shake which was kind of cool.
The start at the JNCC is a live engine, left-hand-on-helmet start which is pretty different than the dead engine start we do at the GNCCs. After the 30-second girl ran off the track, Masami pointed down the line, raised his rising sun Japanese flag for a few seconds, and waved it vigorously and the racers were off. Thad got a great jump, but almost looped his bike out as he opted to just jam it into gear instead of pulling in the clutch. He ended up getting pinched off pretty badly in the first turn and went down, as Kanney snuck through inside the top-5.
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Nate Kanney led most of the race.
Krista, Jerry Bernardo, and I hiked out into the woods to catch some of the action right after the start. We started down the trail and nearly got run over as Kanney and Koikeda came barreling through quicker than we had anticipated. We made a few quick moves through the bamboo in the forest and made our way to safety, and continued heading to the gnarly hill climb that was the buzz of the pits. The uphill section was pretty huge, with at least 30 different options to go up with deep, deep, deep ruts that looked like they were leftover from a nasty mud race and dried up. As soon as we got to the hill there were stuck riders everywhere. There were leaves fallen all over the track and it seemed like all the riders just slipped into some of the deepest ruts no matter how hard they tried.
Kanney and Koikeda came through and made it up the hill no problem, each choosing different but equally effective lines. Thad came through maybe 20 seconds behind them and made it up okay, too. On the next lap Kanney crashed going up the hill and Koikeda took over the lead. Thad was closing in, but eventually had his back brake go out as well as 5th gear in his transmission go, so he fell off the pace.
Kanney and Koikeda (former Japan National Motocross champ) battled pretty fiercely for the first half of the race until the blistering pace took its toll on Koikeda and Kanney slowly began to pull away. By the race's end, Nate had over a 4 minute lead over Koikeda in second, who had 3 minutes on DuVall who round out the podium.
At the race's end, all of the morning "Fun GP" participants lined up to slap hands with the pros, just as the pros had done for them earlier in the day. Definitely a pretty cool deal.
Shortly after the race the top-3 in the pro class, as well as the top amateur did a "temporary" podium as it was called, and did a small speech and the top-3 did a champagne celebration. Over an hour later the official podium celebration got underway where the top-5 in the pro class all were on stage. Nate was presented with his 100,000 Yen big check (approximately $960) and he did one more champagne celebration, then threw a tire he was given as a prize (it wasn't a Pirelli) into the crowd nearly starting a riot.
Now, it's time for us to head to our 3rd hotel of the trip. It's supposedly close to the beach and tomorrow we're going out on a boat for a sightseeing tour before heading to Tokyo by train. I'll check in when I can!
*For a full race report check out www.gnccracing.com later this morning.
