When Ryan (Ryan Young, president of Ryan Young Products/Sherco USA) told me that I would be providing support for the World Round Riders at Duluth, I was a little overwhelmed, I had just started providing pit support for the US riders at the US Nationals, so this was a bit scary.
The first issue was to get to Duluth on time, we were in Cotopaxi, Colorado for the US National on the 29th and 30th of May and had to be in Duluth on Tuesday the 1st of June, a mere 1,200 mile drive pulling the 45 foot long Team Sherco trailer that was full of bikes, support equipment and RYP accessories, a very heavy load into a contrary headwind with a truck that could use a little more horsepower. David Chaves and I teamed up to get the job done, we left Colorado late Sunday afternoon and pulled into Duluth around 4:00 PM on the 1st. Needless to say we slept well that night.
Steve Ahlers and his daughter Sarah, promoter and clerk of the course, met us and helped us get the trailer parked and everything set up in the right location, they did an outstanding job all week. The event was truly "World Class"; all of the people involved did an outstanding job.
Wednesday morning we were open for business and no sooner had we managed to get things pretty much in order when the riders showed up ready to put their bikes together and get the show on the road. We had four Factory Sherco riders and one US rider to provide support for. The factory riders were Graham Jarvis, Sam Connor, Junior Rider, Jose-Maria Juan and Junior Rider, Deigo Garrido. The US rider was Travis Fox, David Chaves was scheduled to ride but he had badly bruised his right heel at Cotopaxi and was unable to ride. I was really amazed at how the riders jumped right in and helped put their bikes together, they were all involved with the assembly and set up process, they kept me busy getting tools etc. It was wild communicating with the Spanish guys; it is amazing how well you can communicate by pointing and using hand motions.
All of the bikes got put together and everything went well up until Saturday the 5th, the weather did not co-operate and it poured all day, all of the riders did well, Graham finished second and Deigo finished, third the real tragedy was the junior rider Jose-Maria Juan who was tied for first place in the Junior class, he was using a new carburetor and could not get the bike to run properly, after working on it several times he elected to go back to the stock carburetor, he had spent so much time in the pit working on the new carburetor that he timed out and was disqualified, needless to say he was very disappointed. He had a much better day on Sunday finishing in first place, Deigo was fourth, Graham was sixth and Sam Connor had his best finish this year with a tenth place.
In summary I was very impressed with the riders, Elite riders who are not elitist.